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Easyjet has revealed that fewer than half of UK flights for this summer have been booked as customers leave it late to arrange trips.

The budget airline said capacity for the usually lucrative July-September period was just 44% sold, down from 69% in the same period in 2019 before the pandemic.

It said customers “are currently booking much closer to departure due to market conditions” – echoing recent comments from rival travel operator Jet 2.

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Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said people should expect travel disruption and should book holidays accordingly.

Booking rates on flights taking off or landing in the UK had been lower than for intra-EU travel “due to the uncertainty around government restrictions”.

“Easyjet expect this to improve quickly as restrictions are lifted over the coming period,” the carrier said.

The airline also published a survey suggesting public backing for COVID tests to be scrapped for fully vaccinated travellers returning from countries that are not on the “red” destinations list.

Its chief executive Johan Lundgren has consistently argued that the tests – about £400 for a family of four – risk pricing ordinary consumers out of holidays.

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The airline’s third quarter results, covering the three months to the end of June, showed it made a headline pre-tax loss of £318m, an improvement on the £347m loss reported during a period last year that covered the first lockdown.

Easyjet said it flew 17% of its pre-pandemic capacity during the quarter, slightly ahead of expectations at a time when for the most part its fleet was grounded, but expects to ramp this up to 60% during the current fourth quarter.

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France’s restrictions bring travel turmoil

That helped push shares about 2% higher in early trading.

Easyjet also paid out a further £122m of customer refunds, taking the total bill to £1.2bn so far during the pandemic.

The airline said it has been switching capacity away “from UK-touching to EU-touching” flights this summer – with two-thirds of bookings presently coming from Europe, compared to a typical 50/50 split.

It said: “As a result of the current divergence in government travel policies, easyJet’s bookings for this summer are heavily skewed towards continental Europe.”

But the airline also said it had been responding to changing UK rules, with 60,000 extra seats and two new routes to Malta added when it was put on the “green” travel list and capacity for “amber” list countries such as Portugal, Spain, Greece and Cyprus topped up when quarantine rules were eased earlier this month.

“We remain confident about demand for travel this summer and into autumn, due to the bookings surges experienced following selective easing of travel restrictions,” easyJet said.

Travel rules were further thrown into confusion last week when the government said fully vaccinated travellers returning from France would – unlike those coming from other “amber” list countries – still have to quarantine on their return.

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The evidence that Russia sanctions evasion has intensified

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The evidence that Russia sanctions evasion has intensified

For more than a year, we have been tracking the flow of sanctioned items out of the UK and towards Russia.

Electronic equipment, radar parts, components used to make aircraft and drones. These are all items that have been banned from going to Russia. For good reason: while Britain is far from a global manufacturing powerhouse, it nonetheless still makes certain prized components used to make machinery.

In some hands, these components could be used for peaceful purposes, but they could also be used to wage war. All of which is why they are among the items sanctioned by G7 nations and banned from entry to Russia.

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A glance at the trade figures might lull you into thinking those sanctions have been extraordinarily successful. Look at the flows of these so-called “dual use” goods from the UK to Russia and they drop to zero shortly after the invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of those export bans. But that’s not the whole story – because over precisely the same period, exports of those same items to countries neighbouring Russia have risen sharply.

At this point, the data trail goes cold. As far as the statistics tell us, those components stay in the Caucasus and Central Asia. But there are two powerful pieces of evidence that suggest otherwise. The first is that we have travelled out to the border of Russia and filmed European-sanctioned goods (in this case cars, the hardest of all goods to disguise) passing across the border.

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Zelenskyy: Sanctions needed as countries supplying missile components to Russia

The second is that Ukrainian forces have repeatedly found weaponry and equipment containing European and British components inside them on the battlefield in their country. British technology has been used to kill Ukrainians – in spite of sanctions. That was one of the messages President Volodymyr Zelenskyy relayed in his interview with my colleague Mark Austin.

So, in the wake of that interview, we revisited the databases to see if those flows of goods to Russian neighbours had slowed in recent months.

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But, far from slowing, they’ve accelerated. In the past nine months, the flow of dual-use goods to Russian neighbours has risen by an average of 9%, compared with the monthly average between the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and last June. Those flows are 111% higher than they were before the invasion.

Read more:
Analysis: Reasons for rhetoric from Russia
Western brands remain on Russian shelves
Putin says ‘Ukraine is ours’

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Nor are the flows of British goods to Russian neighbours the only trend suggesting these components are being trans-shipped via third countries. Look at exports of sanctioned items to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey and they are up by a similar proportion.

In short: the evasion of sanctions continues much as it has done since the beginning of the war. For all the talk about the toughest sanctions regime in history, the reality on the ground is somewhat different.

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Israel-Iran ceasefire hopes drive down oil and gas costs

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Israel-Iran ceasefire hopes drive down oil and gas costs

Global oil costs have fallen back sharply amid hopes that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran will end the threat of disruption to crucial energy flows for the world economy.

The cost of a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was as high as $81 late on Sunday night as financial markets opened in Asia.

It was the first reaction to news of the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend and built on gains seen widely since Israel first began its strikes 10 days previously.

Israel-Iran live updates: Trump swears as he rages at both countries

But prices came down on Monday evening after it became clear that Iran’s retaliation, through missile attacks on a US base in Qatar, were a mere face-saving exercise due to the Americans being pre-warned by Tehran.

Drops of more than 7% in US trading were followed by a further 3% fall on Tuesday, with Brent currently standing just below $68.

It remains, however, $5 a barrel higher on where it started the month and reflects the continuing, possible, threat to shipping in the key Strait of Hormuz which handles 20% of global oil and 30% of natural gas supplies.

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The main concerns in the energy market were over potential disruption to liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries as it remains in high demand.

Europe is yet to fully restock following the harsh end to last winter which drained storage levels.

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Trump not happy with Israel

As such prices had already been driven up by steep competition from Asia for Gulf supplies.

UK day-ahead natural gas prices were more than 25% up in the month, as of Monday, and have not fallen as sharply as oil costs.

Financial services specialists have pointed to upwards shifts in the risk premiums facing cargo, especially tankers, due to the conflict.

Analysts had warned last week that a sustained Middle East war with disruption to energy shipping risked a fresh cost of living crisis similar to that seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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Timeline of recent Israel-Iran conflict so far

Only a sustained ceasefire is likely to bring the additional costs seen in wholesale prices down.

Stock markets have also reacted positively to the ceasefire development, with the FTSE 100 in London up by 0.3%.

The gains in London have lagged those seen across much of Europe.

Commenting on the moves Russ Mould, AJ Bell’s investment director, said: “The markets will be watching closely to see if the cessation in hostilities is maintained and for Iran’s next move – amid noises from that side that no such ceasefire has been agreed.

“Defensive stocks, oil producers and precious metals miners were all under pressure in early trading.

“Gold slipped back as its safe-haven attributes were less in demand. This rather clipped the wings of the FTSE 100 given its relatively heavy weightings in these areas and saw the index underperform its European counterparts.

“On the flipside, travel stocks moved higher, both on the implications for fuel costs but also as the potential hit to foreign travel appetite that might have resulted from any further escalation of Middle East tensions seems to have been swerved.”

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Amazon to invest £40bn in UK – with more warehouses and thousands of new jobs

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Amazon to invest £40bn in UK - with more warehouses and thousands of new jobs

Amazon has said it will invest £40bn in the UK over the next three years as it creates thousands of jobs and opens four new warehouses.

The online shopping giant will build two huge fulfilment centres in the East Midlands, which it expects to open in 2027. The exact locations are still to be revealed.

Two others – in Hull and Northampton – were previously announced and are set to be finished this year and in 2026 respectively, with 2,000 jobs expected at each site.

Amazon is already one of the country’s biggest private employers – with around 75,000 staff.

Two new buildings will also go up at its corporate headquarters in east London, while other investment includes new delivery stations, upgrading its transport network and redeveloping Bray Film Studios in Berkshire – which it bought last year.

The £40bn figure also includes most of the £8bn announced in 2024 for building and maintaining UK data centres, as well as staff wages and benefits.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the investment into Amazon’s third-biggest market after the US and Germany was a “massive vote of confidence in the UK as the best place to do business”.

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“It means thousands of new jobs – real opportunities for people in every corner of the country to build careers, learn new skills, and support their families,” said Sir Keir.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said it was a “powerful endorsement of Britain’s economic strengths”.

Read more from Sky News:
Doctors using unapproved AI to record patient meetings
Plans to cut energy costs for thousands of businesses

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy stressed the investment would benefit communities across the UK.

“When Amazon invests, it’s not only in London and the South East,” he said.

“We’re bringing innovation and job creation to communities throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, strengthening the UK’s economy and delivering better experiences for customers wherever they live.”

However, Amazon’s immense power and size continues to raise concerns among some regulators, unions and campaigners.

There have long been claims over potentially dangerous conditions at its warehouses – denied by the company, while last week Britain’s grocery regulator launched an investigation into whether it breached rules on supplier payments.

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