Air Berlin in deal talks with TUI and Etihad October 5, 2016 Germany's Air Berlin is in talks about a potential merger with TUIfly, according to reports. The group said discussions are focused on "contributing the touristic operations of Air Berlin to a new venture to be established by TUI AG and Etihad Aviation Group". "This would create a strong new European leisure airline group, combining the German [...]
Lufthansa board approves plans to take over Brussels Airlines September 28, 2016 German airline Lufthansa said today that its supervisory board has approved plans to buy the remaining chunk of Brussels Airlines that it didn't already own. The carrier bought 45 per cent of Brussels Airlines owner SN Airholding in 2009 for €65m (£56m), with the option of buying the other 55 per cent from 2011 onwards. Lufthansa [...]
Forget trade deals: Unilaterally tearing down our tariffs would be Britain’s Berlin Wall moment September 7, 2016 The Aussies are itching for a free trade deal and the Prime Minister is said to want to lead the world against protectionism. For most people such issues are economic, pure and simple. Unfortunately, what is missing is the moral dimension, which needs to be far better understood. Adam Smith argued that “all commerce that [...]
Banning diesel cars is essential to tackling London’s pollution crisis August 17, 2016 Writing in City A.M. on Friday last week, Trevor Raymond from the World Platinum Investment Council argued that the phasing out of diesel cars from London’s roads, as recommended in a recent report we published, was a “blunt policy response to a complex and evolving [air pollution] problem”. We totally agree. There is no single [...]
Brexit threatens London’s world beating tourism industry: Don’t let the capital become a museum May 24, 2016 Tourism is one of our biggest exports – and London is the most-visited city on earth. But the industry is worried that this world-beating ranking could be at risk if Britain cuts itself off from Europe. In fact, Europe is our biggest tourist market, with more than 60 per cent of visitors to the UK [...]
Monarch Airlines considers inbound and outbound bids less than two years after Greybull flew to its rescue April 17, 2016 Monarch Airlines is considering both inbound and outbound bids less than two years after it nearly collapsed. Monarch Group has confirmed it has "generated inbound interest". And it has taken on Deutsche Bank to "evaluate both inbound and outbound opportunities". Easyjet is said to be considering a bid for the airline along with China's HNA. And [...]
Who leaked the Panama papers? April 4, 2016 How do you leak 2.6 terabytes of data? That's 11.5m records, 4.8m emails and 2.1m PDFs – 40 years worth of data, about 214,000 offshore entities and numerous famous names and faces and how they secretly arranged their taxes. The Panama papers leak is the biggest in history – but how did it ever get leaked and who was [...]
The world’s most popular cities for tourist: London comes second to Hong Kong January 28, 2016 London has come second to Hong Kong in a ranking of the world's most popular cities among tourists. Euromonitor International's annual "top city destinations ranking" covers 100 of the world's leading cities in terms of tourist arrivals. London benefited from its iconic stature, the success of the London Olympics in 2012, as well as its cultural [...]
Goldman Sachs leads $45m investment in travel website startup GoEuro December 9, 2015 Goldman Sachs is among several investors to plough millions into a travel website which compares plane, train, bus and car rental across Europe. The $45m (£30m) series B investment round for three-year-old Berlin-founded startup GoEuro was lead by the Goldman's Investment Partners arm, with further cash coming from venture capital firms and entrepreneurs. That includes London headquartered Atomico, Russian billionaire Yuri [...]
London can come out on top in the era of job-killing robots September 23, 2015 Scary, scary robots. If you believe the hype, robots are coming for your job, your society and everything you hold dear. A widely publicised report argued that 35 per cent of jobs in the UK could be destroyed by automation and computerisation (which is what “robots” have come to mean in the shorthand of [...]