News in brief: French strike clips easyJet’s wings, Marathon casino court case pays out, UN reports global fall in food prices
A strike by France’s air traffic controllers forced easyJet to cancel 585 flights last month. That compares to just 22 flights cancelled in June last year.
But the FTSE 100-listed budget airline still enjoyed a slight pick up in passenger numbers last month, when it flew 5.5 million people, up 1.9% on the same time a year earlier. However, load factor, an industry measure of how full aircraft are, remained stable at 89.9%. So far this year easyJet has flown 60.2 million passengers.
Marathon casino court case pays out
Casino website 32Red has won a four-year legal fight against bookie William Hill, winning £1.1 million in costs and damages and forcing Hill to take down its 32Vegas website.
Ed Ware, 32Red’s chief executive, said of the High Court victory: “The 32Vegas brand was damaging to our business and litigation was the only available solution.” 32Red’s shares added 1p or 2% to 51.5p.
UN reports global fall in food prices
Lower dairy and sugar costs and slight falls in cereals saw food prices around the world fall 1% in June, the United Nations’ food agency reported today.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, fell for the second month running to 211.3 points in June, compared with 213.2 points in May.
