Bloomberg After months of controversy last year triggered by the forcible dragging of a doctor off a flight in Chicago, airlines significantly cut down on bumping passengers. US carriers recorded the fewest number of bumped passengers in 2017 since the government began collecting data on the practice in 1995, the Department of Transportation reported. Last year there were 23,223 people …

Bloomberg Boeing Co.’s slow-selling 737 Max 7 has a big fan in Western Canada. WestJet Airlines Ltd. next year will become the second carrier, after Southwest Airlines Co., to operate the smallest version of Boeing’s upgraded workhorse. The Calgary-based company is set to receive five of the single-aisle jetliners next year. “We love those planes,” WestJet Chief Executive Officer Gregg …

Bloomberg Pandora A/S said the US retail market remained challenging for its physical stores last quarter, but pointed to an improved performance in online sales. Revenue grew 16 percent in the Americas last quarter from a year earlier, the Copenhagen-based company said. In local currency, Pandora saw a 27% increase. “Growth was supported by the acquisition of franchise stores in …

Bloomberg The Amazon-fuelled grocery price war may have finally arrived. News that Amazon.com will start offering two-hour delivery from Whole Foods stores in four US cities has the food world buzzing that competition is about to heat up in an industry that survives on razor-thin margins. In the six months since Amazon acquired the organic grocer, the e-commerce giant has …

RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabian utility developer ACWA Power expects to submit tenders for projects this year worth $4.5 billion in Saudi Arabia and will also target projects in Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, its chief executive said. ACWA Power CEO Paddy Padmanathan also confirmed the developer of electricity and water projects in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast …

BEIRUT / Reuters Lebanon said it had signed its first offshore oil and gas exploration and production agreements for two blocks, including a block disputed by neighbouring Israel. Lebanon’s energy minister said the dispute with Israel would not stop Lebanon benefiting from potential undersea reserves in the contentious Block 9, while consortium operator Total said it would not drill the …

Bloomberg While many oil producers are stepping back from their retail operations, Royal Dutch Shell Plc is doubling down. Shell, which has about 44,000 filling stations around the world, opened its first one in Mexico last year, the start of $1 billion in investments over the next decade. Shell also is ramping up spending in China, India, Indonesia and Russia, …

Bloomberg Asia pushed past the rest of the world last year to become the biggest buyer of America’s crude oil — and it’s poised to do it again in 2018. Just two years after Washington ended its crude-export ban, the continent soaked up 37 percent of the oil the US sent abroad in 2017, up from about 9 percent in …

Bloomberg Europe is suddenly the hot market for hedge-fund investment. After years of being overlooked, the continent is attracting capital from investors who want to take advantage of a recovering economy as the last effects of the euro-zone debt crisis disappear. Buyers are also piling in to diversify portfolios swelled by the stock-market boom — which after this week’s correction …

Bloomberg A selloff in the market for speculative-grade corporate bonds accelerated amid turmoil in the stock market, handing investors their worst weekly loss since the oil slump two years ago. The bonds lost 1.5 percent on the week, the worst performance since February 2016, Bloomberg Barclays index data show. The average spread on high-yield bonds — or the premium investors …