Oil prices plunge amid fears of historic crash repeat April 27, 2020 Oil prices plunged this morning amid signs that the world’s storage facilities were on the brink of capacity, raising fears that producers are not cutting output fast enough to offset the collapse in demand. After last week’s historic crash, which saw the price of US standard West Texas Intermediate (WTI) turn negative for the first [...]
Airbus ‘bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed’ due to coronavirus April 27, 2020 Planemaking giant Airbus has written to its 135,000 staff warning them to expect deeper job cuts, with the firm “bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed”. In a letter to employees, chief executive Guillaume Faury said that the aerospace behemoth’s survival was at stake, saying that the recent drop in production of a third was not [...]
Coronavirus: Asian markets rebound as Bank of Japan expands stimulus package April 27, 2020 Asia’s premier markets opened strongly this morning after the Bank of Japan announced it would buy an unlimited amount of government bonds in order to protect the country’s economy from the coronavirus pandemic. The Nikkei rose 2.8 per cent to 19,803.76, the Hang Seng picked up two per cent to 24,304.32 and the MSCI, which [...]
CMA receives 16,000 consumer complaints over coronavirus refunds April 24, 2020 Around four fifths of the complaints received by the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) coronavirus taskforce have been related to refunds and cancellations. As of the beginning of the week, the CMA has received a total of 21,000 complaints related to the disease. According to the competition watchdog, 14,000 of these complaints refer to the [...]
Coronavirus: First Group receives £300m from Bank of England April 24, 2020 Transport operator First Group today announced it had received £300m from the Bank of England to help deal with the financial damage of the coronavirus pandemic. First is currently running its bus services at 40 per cent of normal capacity, although passenger numbers have dropped 90 per cent, the firm said. The company’s rail franchises [...]
Progress on post-Brexit talks ‘disappointing’, says Barnier April 24, 2020 The EU’s chief negotiator has said that progress between the bloc and the UK in the post-Brexit trade talks has thus far been “disappointing”. Michel Barnier said that despite having set such a tight timeline for the talks, the UK had failed to move on a number of key issues. Speaking at a press conference [...]
Heathrow boss calls for coronavirus tests at UK airports April 24, 2020 The chief executive of the UK’s biggest airport has written to the government to call for it to introduce mass health screening at the country’s airports as part of its response to the coronavirus pandemic. Last night John Holland-Kaye wrote to health secretary Matt Hancock to demand the UK puts in place rigorous measures to [...]
Coronavirus: Transport for London to furlough 7,000 staff April 24, 2020 Tube operator Transport for London (TfL) will put 7,000 of its staff onto the government’s job retention scheme from Monday to cut costs during the coronavirus pandemic. Passenger number on TfL’s services have plummeted in recent weeks due to the coronavirus lockdown, as all but essential workers have taken to working from home. According to [...]
Lufthansa books €1.2bn first quarter loss as carrier seeks state-backed loan April 24, 2020 Late last night German state carrier Lufthansa announced it had taken a €1.2bn loss for the first quarter of 2020, raising the prospect that it could go out of business in weeks unless it receives state aid. As a result of the coronavirus outbreak, the flier has been forced to ground almost all of its [...]
Oil prices rally loses steam after week of massive losses April 24, 2020 Global oil prices eased their rally this morning but remained on track for a huge weekly loss after unprecedented levels of volatility left producers and traders alike bruised. Worldwide standard Brent crude rose 1.9 per cent this morning to stand at $21.73, while US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained nearly two per cent to [...]
