Ryanair Holdings PLC said demand for air travel within Europe could receive an unlikely boost if the coronavirus epidemic in China persists, prompting people to holiday closer to home.
Trends from 2003, when travelers avoided Asia after the SARS outbreak, suggest consumers could begin to alter their travel habits, Ryanair chief financial officer Neil Sorahan said in an interview yesterday.
“People tended to stay close to home,” Sorahan told Bloomberg Television. “They holidayed in Europe as opposed to heading as far afield as Asia and elsewhere.”
The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan last month has killed more than 360 people and infected 17,000.
Dozens of nations and airlines are restricting travel, with almost 10,000 flights canceled through Friday last week, travel industry data and analytics firm Cirium said, even though the WHO has so far said that such limits are not needed to control the spread.
Fitch Group yesterday said that a prolonged outbreak of the coronavirus would weigh on the tourist economy in Thailand, affecting not only Chinese demand but travel from elsewhere.
As of yesterday Thailand had 19 confirmed cases, Fitch said.
For Ryanair, a surge in European travel would bolster margins as it grapples with the grounding of Boeing Co’s 737 MAX jet.
The discount giant said that deliveries from a 200-strong order would not start until September or October, so fuel-efficiency savings would not be realized until late in the fiscal year starting in April.
Europe’s biggest low-cost airline posted net income of 88 million euros (US$97.48 million) for the third quarter through December from a loss a year earlier, aided by last-minute sales over the Christmas holidays.
Bookings are 1 percent up on last year, with planes 96 percent full, so an increase in regional travel would push up fares.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS