Bailiffs board Ryanair plane after airline refuses to pay delayed flight compensation

Bailiffs have boarded a Ryanair aircraft after the airline refused to pay compensation to a passenger whose flight was delayed.Austrian officials took action after the budget carrier ignored a court order to pay the unnamed woman €890 (£742) in legal costs and compensation for a delayed flight two years ago.A bailiff entered the plane, which was bound for London, as it sat on the stand at Linz airport on Monday and fixed a seizure sticker to the cabin when crew were unable to settle the debt.The label, known as a “cuckoo sticker”, gives the court legal control over the aircraft, which was allowed to continue to operate under set conditions. The court can sell the Boeing 737 at public auction if the debt is not paid by a deadline

Bleak economic data shows UK plc in trouble well before Middle East crisis

Even before Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury on Iran unleashed higher oil prices, threatening the outlook for growth and inflation, the UK economy was flatlining.That’s the bleak message in the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which showed zero GDP growth in January.On the less volatile three-monthly measure, growth was 0.2% – a slight improvement on 0.1% in the three months to December

UK economy unexpectedly flatlined in January, official figures show

The UK economy unexpectedly flatlined in January, stoking concerns over growth amid the global energy price shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed 0% growth in gross domestic product (GDP), down from an increase of 0.1% in December, as the economy failed to recover from uncertainty surrounding the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.Falling significantly short of City predictions for growth of 0.2%, the figures came as the UK and other countries faced a potentially severe economic hit as the Middle East conflict drove up oil and gas prices, hitting consumers with higher living costs

Keeping it simple was always the answer for John Lewis | Nils Pratley

It turns out, the remedy for the John Lewis partnership’s post-Covid woes of a few years ago did not lie in seeking outside capital or building 10,000 buy-to-rent flats. Rather, the solution was the old-fashioned one of cutting costs and concentrating on basic shopkeeping.As it happens, the wild idea of seeking external investors was virtually dead the moment it was loosely aired, such was the uproar among customers and staff about the threat to the 100%-employee owned model. But the home-building adventure did get going until it was ditched by the newish chair, Jason Tarry, a couple of weeks ago. He accepted, in effect, a point that should have been obvious at the outset: if the building assumptions relied on interest rates remaining at near-zero for years, the project would not survive contact with events

Watchdog puts UK fuel retailers ‘on notice’ over profiteering from Iran war

The UK competition watchdog has warned fuel retailers it is stepping up its monitoring of pump prices amid concern over profiteering as the US war with Iran drives up wholesale costs.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said firms responsible for thousands of filling stations across the country had been “put on notice” amid a wider government crackdown to stop bosses ramping up profits at the expense of consumers.The watchdog said it would require firms to provide their revenue, costs and sales data, accelerating a review of fuel industry margins it initiated after the conflict began just under a fortnight ago.Against a volatile backdrop in global energy markets, the oil price rose past $100 (£75) a barrel on Thursday for a second time in a week, as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities across the region and a threat to continue blocking the strait of Hormuz overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.Petrol and diesel prices have risen sharply, alongside a jump in the cost of home heating fuel

Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’

Oil markets are facing the “largest supply disruption in history” as the war in Iran continues to block tankers from shipping millions of barrels of crude each day, the world energy watchdog has warned.The International Energy Agency (IEA) said the supply shock ignited by Iran’s effective blockade of the strait of Hormuz meant the world faced a deeper crisis than after the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine.The warning came as Iran issued a statement that was said to be the first from its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to call for the vital trade artery to “remain closed”, in a blow to hopes of a resolution to the crisis.In response, global oil prices passed $100 (£75) a barrel on Thursday as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.In an attempt to calm concerns over oil supplies, the IEA ordered the largest release of government reserves in its history on Wednesday, when its 32 members unanimously agreed to release 400m barrels of emergency crude