EasyJet operations chief departs amid battle to avoid more flight chaos – business live

The chief operating officer of easyJet resigned last week.

easyJet, which has experienced significant disruption and canceled flights in this year's travel chaos, says that Bellew is leaving to "pursue other business opportunities".

The CEO of easyJet said in a statement.

“I would like to thank Peter for his hard work and wish him well. Everyone at easyJet remains absolutely focused on delivering a safe and reliable operation this summer.

easyJet is trying to avoid a repeat of the shambolic scenes at airports last Easter and over half term.

In a critical summer for the airline industry, EasyJet has appointed David Morgan, who served as interim COO in 2019.

Lundgren speaks.

“I am pleased that Operations will be in the very capable hands of David Morgan who can move seamlessly into this role having previously led the operation, as interim Chief Operating Officer, throughout 2019.

“David has significant experience and deep knowledge of the business and operation and will provide strong leadership for the airline this summer.”

EasyJet cut its summer flight capacity last month due to a number of problems, including staff shortages, air traffic control problems, and airport disruptions.

Gwyn Topham wrote in the Observer's Agenda last month that Bellew could be ousted.

Some sources say the [easyJet] board, led by chairman Stephen Hester, may get twitchy.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren, who pledged to use data to reduce disruption and cancellations when he took the job in 2017, and chief operating officer Peter Bellew, formerly of Ryanair, would probably be first in the line of fire.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that easyJet's senior managers were going to Mallorca to attend a corporate meeting.

The people wrote.

The executives will stay for two nights at the five-star Iberostar resort hotel in Palma. The Iberostar, which is on the beach, has a rooftop infinity pool and a sunset champagne bar.

The price of gas in the UK jumped this morning on fears that a planned strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers will affect production.

The day-ahead price of natural gas in the UK has risen to the highest level in over a week.

The price of gas in the UK has gone up.

Due to the decrease in shipments from Russia, Norwegian supply is becoming more important.

Gas prices in Europe rose this morning.

Natural gas in Europe rose to the highest level in almost four months as planned strikes in Norway threaten to further tighten a market that’s already reeling from Russia’s supply cuts.

Benchmark futures, which have already more than doubled this year, surged as much as 9.8% on Monday. About 13% of Norway’s daily gas exports are at risk amid plans to escalate an impending strike by managers, the nation’s oil and gas lobby warned over the weekend.

Three fields are set to be shut by the strike starting Tuesday, while planned action the following day would take out another three projects.

In Turkey, inflation is much higher than in the UK.

Turkey's inflation rate rose to 78.62 last month, the highest it has been in 25 years. Transport and food prices rocketed it was the leader.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, prices rose in June.

That was shown in June's inflation repoirt.

• Transportation prices more than doubled, up 123% in the last year
• Food and non-alcoholic foood prices jumped by 93.93% per year, up from 91.6%
• The lowest annual increase was 23.74% in communication, while clothing and footwear prices rose 26.99%

The energy and commodity prices went up due to the war. Turkey's central bank cut interest rates last year under pressure from president Erdoan, causing the lira to plummet.

Germany's top union official warned that the country's heavy industries could be in danger because of the cuts in Russian gas supplies.

There was a warning last weekend before crisis talks began.

According to the head of the German Federation of Trade Unions, the chemical industry is in danger of collapsing because of the gas bottlenecks.

“Such a collapse would have massive consequences for the entire economy and jobs in Germany.”

The full story can be found onBloomberg.

The rate of child poverty at single-parent families was reduced in the 2000s.

The progress was completely undone in the last 10 years due to benefit cuts, according to Xiaowei Xu, one of the authors of today's research.

There has been a rise in lone-parent families in relative poverty.

Sentiment among investors in the eurozone has fallen to its lowest level since May 2020.

The Sentix index for the eurozone fell to levels that suggest a downturn.

The energy crisis is causing economic distortions.

“In every respect, the dynamics are reminiscent of the crisis year 2008, and what was then the collapse of the financial system is now the danger of the collapse of the European energy supply.

European will fall into recession this year, with economists worried that Russian gas and oil supplies could be cut this winter.

There is one for the books. Germany has a trade deficit for the first time in over three decades.

Destatis reported this morning that German exports fell in May.

There was a 2.8% drop in sales to other European Union countries.

The cost of imported goods rose this year.

Germany had a trade deficit of 1 billion in May.

VP Bank's chief economist said that the fall in exports shouldn't be over emphasized.

“But the number of negative reports is growing, which is why a sober view of the figures leaves one with an uneasy feeling.”

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The shares of oil companies are up in the City.

Even as metal prices weaken, the top risers on the London Stock Exchange are Harbour and BP, both of which are North Sea producers.

Analysts at the strategy team explain.

Crude oil and fuel products have maintained support throughout the current recession-focused storm which has seen metals and agriculture suffer steep declines, and it shows that commodities with tight supply can be supported despite the risk of slowing demand.

However, the upside potential for crude oil remains limited with China reporting widening Covid-19 outbreaks and with recession risks rising in the US and elsewhere.

The blue-chip shares gained 70 points, or 1%, to 7237.

Haroon Siddique

Parents and providers are angry about plans to ease staffing ratios in nurseries in England.

Changing staff-to-child ratios so that each adult can look after five two-year-olds instead of four is one of the ways the government is thinking of reducing the cost of child care.

If the changes are adopted, the costs could be reduced by up to 15% or £40 a week for a family with a two-year-old.

The figures have been questioned by the charity, which called themnonsense.

Changing ratios for two-year-olds from 1: to 1:5 won't make a difference to the cost of child care.

Tanuku gives an explanation.

That can only come from the government paying the full rate for funded childcare places for children under five.

Neil Leitch is the CEO of the Early Years Alliance.

Our own research has clearly shown that the proposal to relax ratios for two-year-olds in nurseries and pre-schools from 1:4 to 1:5 will not only fail to lower the cost of early years places, but in any settings that do adopt the new ratios, will drive down quality and worsen the already catastrophic recruitment and retention crisis the sector is already experiencing.”

The whole story is here.

More pubs are closing because of the cost of living squeeze and the lost trade in the Pandemic.

The number of pubs in England and Wales has fallen over the last 10 years.

The number of pubs fell below 40,000 in the first half of the year as national lockdowns caused pubs to close.

With the energy crisis pushing up their bills and wholesale beer and food prices going up, pubs that survived the Pandemic are now facing record-high inflation.

Robert Hayton is the president of the UK.

“While pubs proved remarkably resilient during the pandemic, they’re now facing new headwinds grappling with the cost of doing business crisis through soaring energy costs, inflationary pressures and tax rises.

More UK firms are planning to raise their prices over the next three months, which will add to the cost of living squeeze.

According to the British Chambers of Commerce, economic indicators are flashing red as companies face increasing inflationary pressures and look to pass them onto customers.

A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce found that two-thirds of firms expect their prices to go up.

Utility bills, labour costs, fuel and raw materials are some of the factors driving price rises.

David Bharier is the head of research at theBCC.

“This quarter’s survey results clearly point to a weakening economic outlook amid unprecedented cost pressures and falling business confidence....

“Businesses face an unprecedented convergence of cost pressures, with the main drivers coming from raw materials, fuel, utilities, taxes, and labour.

“The continuing supply chain crisis, exacerbated by conflict in Ukraine and lockdowns in China, has further compounded this.”

28% of respondents have predicted their profits will decrease as a result of price rises

The rise in relative poverty among children of lone parents is an entirely predictable result of recent benefit cuts.

The entirely predictable result of very large cuts to benefits (tax credits/Universal Credit cuts, the benefit cap, and the 2 child limit).

And for what? https://t.co/B5Q8FTjmW1

The report shows the high poverty rate for children of lone parents.

As shown in the opening post, relative poverty for children of lone parents rose from 40% in the first year to 49% by the second year.

There was no progress in reducing absolute poverty for children of lone parents in the years before the Pandemic.

The flatlining of absolute poverty and rise in relative poverty for children of lone parents reflect reductions in the real value of state benefits, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The author of the report is Jonathan Cribb.

‘Rises in employment pushed up incomes of lone-parent families in the years running up to the pandemic, but cuts to state benefits and tax credits reduced their incomes.

The combined effect was that there was no progress in reducing absolute poverty in lone-parent families between 2010 and 2019, and their incomes fell further behind those on average incomes.’

The price of food may not peak until next year, according to an industry group.

According to the Food and Drink Federation, it can take up to 12 months for producers to reach shop shelves.

Karen Betts, the federation's boss, warned that prices would get worse before they get better, as the surge in energy andfertilizer prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine continued to feed through to the shops.

According to the Office for National Statistics, food and drink prices increased in the year to May.

Betts thinks prices will go up.

“I think the peak could well be into next year and that prices could well rise some way above 10%.”

The British Retail Consortium warned last week that shop price inflation had reached its highest rate in almost 14 years.

The challenge of looking after children in a cost of living crisis has been discussed by several single mothers.

There is a 29-year-old from Kent.

I’ve been a single mother since my son was born. He’s now five. We live in a house together in Kent, and I work as an NHS associate practitioner – helping to plan and facilitate discharges from hospital.

I was working in learning disabilities, and we had such a heavy drop in case load because of the pandemic they couldn’t take me on and made me redundant. That was very difficult. I was unemployed for four months and had to use food banks because universal credit payments just didn’t catch up with my income.

There was a sense of shame in it. Almost a sense that you can’t provide the very basics you should be able to for your child. I contacted Single Parent Rights and they signposted me to the benefits I was entitled to. You see in the comments all the time on social media, people saying things like: “Well don’t have children if you can’t afford them.” But life isn’t like that. Circumstances change. You can’t predict the future like that.

I still rely on universal credit despite working full-time now, and I am really feeling the squeeze. My energy bills and food costs have gone up by about £200 a month. I’m absolutely terrified about October when they are set to go even higher. My rent has been going up every three years now, and the council tax has also risen. The cost of the gas hit me hard over winter. I use pay as you go so I don’t get a huge bill at the end of the month but we have had to wrap up warm and just switch it off most days.

Here you can read more from single mothers.

15 years of stagnant income has left UK families exposed to the cost of living crisis.

The Resolution Foundation says there has been a collapse of income growth for poor households.

In the 15 years leading up to the Covid-19 epidemic, typical household disposable income grew by just 0.7% a year.

Households were ill-prepared for the fastest surge in prices in decades because of the meager increase in income. Those with young children were particularly at risk.

The UK has a toxic combination of low growth and high income inequality.

Between 1961 and 2004, the average household income for non-pensioners grew by 25% per decade.

Real income grew at a slower rate between 2004 and 2019.

The incomes of the lowest fifth of the population were not higher on the eve of the epidemic than they were a year ago.

The principle economist at the Resolution Foundation is Adam Corlett.

“Households across Britain – and across many other countries – are currently grappling with high levels of inflation that we haven’t seen for generations.

“But while many of the causes of the current crisis are global in nature, it is Britain’s recent history of low income growth and high inequality that has left so many households really struggling to cope.

“Britain’s poor recent record on living standards – notably the complete collapse of income growth for poor households over the past 20 years – must be turned around in the decade ahead.

“To do that, we must address our failure to raise pay and productivity levels, strengthen our social safety net, reduce housing costs and build on what we’ve done well – such as boosting employment for lower-income households.”

Welcome to our coverage of business, the world economy, the financial markets, and the cost of living.

A decade of austerity-driven cuts to benefits has exposed single-parent families to soaring inflation.

Half of all children in single-parent families are living in relative poverty, according to a report by The Guardian.

Richard Partington explains.

Research shared exclusively with the Guardian by the Institute for Fiscal Studies sets out the scale of the crisis. It shows relative poverty for children in lone-parent families has risen at a significantly faster rate compared with other households.

Relative poverty is defined as having an income of less than 60% of the national median, adjusted for household size.For single parents, this measure of poverty rose by nine percentage points between 2013-14 and 2019-20 to reach 49% at the onset of the global health emergency.

In sharp contrast, the rate for children in two-parent families rose by only two percentage points to reach 25%.

Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, warned that a “painful cost of living squeeze” was hitting families and that progress in tackling child poverty was severely undermined by sweeping benefit cuts imposed over the past decade.

With households across the country facing the worst inflationary shock since the 1980s, charities warned that single mothers were suffering a heavier toll.

The whole story is here.

Also coming up today

Widespread protests at rising petrol and diesel prices and calls for a cut in fuel duty could cause major disruption in the UK today.

Police said that the Prince of Wales Bridge crossing between England and Wales would be blocked.

Essex Police will work tominimise disruption to the public on the county's main roads when a protest is held.

Wall Street is closed for the 4th of July. The European stock market is expected to open higher.

The agenda

• 7am BST: German trade balance for May
• 10am BST: Eurozone producer prices report on factory inflation for May
• 2pm BST: Bank of Israel interest rate decision