Bloomberg British Airways parent IAG SA reported worse-than-expected earnings and tempered plans to boost capacity after staffing shortages at London’s Heathrow airport slowed its UK expansion. Shares of IAG fell 12%, the biggest drop in almost six months, after the company reported a first-quarter operating loss of $769 million. Operations were hit by IT glitches together with the reduced …

Bloomberg Airbus SE is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to ramp up production of its bestselling A320-family of jets to 75 a month by 2025. The figure represents a jump from a build rate of about 50 of the narrow-body planes per month right now and the 65 targeted for the middle of 2023, and comes as demand recovers from …

Bloomberg Japan Airlines Co forecast a return to profit this year, betting on a pick-up in domestic and international travel as the nation signals it’s ready to loosen virus-related border controls. JAL forecast net income of 45 billion yen ($345 million) for the fiscal year ending March 2023, topping analysts’ average estimate for around 10.2 billion yen. The airline posted …

Bloomberg New Jersey is the first state to ban both plastic and paper bags, leaving companies and shoppers to find creative workarounds to get their groceries home. ShopRite, with more than 100 New Jersey stores, will charge a flat $1.50 per order for reusable bags. Instacart Inc, which fulfills shoppers’ lists for Aldi Inc, Lidl Ltd, CVS Health Corp and …

  Bloomberg Amazon Inc makes it too hard and unnecessarily confusing to cancel subscriptions for services, some customers claimed in a lawsuit alleging the internet retailer is violating California’s rules on automatic renewal programs. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco federal court by three California residents who say they signed up for free trials of Amazon services only to …

  Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales plummeted 13.8% in March, the first back-to-back contraction in more than a year as stringent virus restrictions weighed heavily on the economy and crushed consumer spending. The fall in sales value from a year earlier was worse than the median estimate of a 12.6% decline expected by economists in a survey, though it was …

  Bloomberg European banks are counting the rising cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they brace for a wave of defaults and write down the value of their operations in the country. Led by Societe Generale SA and UniCredit SpA, the region’s lenders have so far flagged a hit of $8.6 billion to their earnings from the war. The …

  Bloomberg The Czech central bank lifted borrowing costs more than expected to the highest level since 1999 and signalled further monetary policy tightening to come as intensifying inflation pressure eclipses risks to economic growth. Policy makers raised the benchmark rate by 75 basis points to 5.75% — exceeding the forecasts of all analysts in a Bloomberg survey for a …

  Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said interest rates may be raised back above zero this year if the euro-zone economy doesn’t suffer another setback. In a speech in Paris, the Bank of France chief also suggested that the ECB should conclude net bond purchases at the end of June — a necessary …

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA swung to a small quarterly profit as new Chief Executive Officer Luigi Lovaglio seeks to revamp the bailed-out bank ahead of a planned capital raising. The bank reported a net income of 9.7 million euros ($10.2 million) in the first three months of the year reversing a fourth quarter loss, according …