Good morning and welcome to the IC’s live blog, where we round up the biggest business stories of the day.
Hugs, hotels and indoor socialising
For those who endured torrential rain over the weekend, another step out of lockdown – and a squelching step indoors – will probably sound all the sweeter.
Monday 17th May has brought further reprieve to the people of England, allowing groups of six (or two households) to socialise inside, including for overnight stays.
Up to 30 people can meet outside. Meanwhile, hotels and B&Bs can finally open up to holidaymakers. And at the same time, theatres and pubs can fling their doors open once more. No more windswept pints of beer under feeble garden canopies.
Along with the hospitality sector, travel has also suffered a well-documented crisis during the coronavirus pandemic. But today also brings welcome news for airlines and resort groups, as foreign vacations are officially allowed to resume – albeit limited by Westminster’s ‘traffic light’ system which attributes ‘green’, ‘amber’ and ‘red’ labels to countries according to their Covid-19 risk levels.
Earlier this year, we explored whether vaccines were the key to unlocking the holiday and live events industries. Oliver Telling noted this month that the travel theme of 2021 is likely to remain the ‘staycation’ – something which could be advantageous to domestic transport businesses such as Trainline (TRN: Sell, 7 May 2021).
Virus impact laid bare by Ryanair
Ryanair’s (RYA: Hold, 2 Nov 2020) results have laid bare the heavy blow experienced by air transport companies at the hands of Covid-19. Full-year traffic fell more than four-fifths to 27.5m passengers, wiping €6.9bn off the group’s top line and plunging it into a pre-tax loss of €1.1bn – down from profits of €670m.
Uncertainty prevails about when and where restrictions will be eased, Ryanair said, as it projected that FY2022 traffic “is likely to be towards the lower end of our previously guided range of 80m to 120m passengers”.
Positive results from GSK
A more positive tone was struck over at pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) this morning. In a mid-stage (phase two) trial, the FTSE 100 group’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate – developed in partnership with French company Sanofi (FR:SAN) – had demonstrated a strong immune response across all adult age groups. A late-stage trial is expected to kick off in the coming weeks.
In March, Megan Boxall asked why GSK had ‘done an AstraZeneca’ after agreeing to manufacture 60m Novavax vaccine doses in the UK. HC
You can find our analysis of today’s developments below:
