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Hundreds of thousands of aviation jobs are at risk without more state aid, a global industry body has warned. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) downgraded its 2020 traffic forecasts, after “a dismal end to the summer travel season”.The association, which represents 290 airlines, says it expects traffic to be 66% below the level it was in 2019.The IATA estimates that it will be at least 2024 before air traffic reaches pre-pandemic levels.A second surge in Covid-19 cases and more government restrictions meant the sector has not seen a strong rebound.The travel industry saw a precipitous drop in business after the coronavirus developed into a pandemic.Through the year major airlines, airports and tour firms have collectively announced thousands of job losses.”Absent additional government relief measures and a reopening of borders, hundreds of thousands of airline jobs will disappear,” IATA chief executive Alexandre de Juniac said.He called for Covid-19 tests to be routinely carried out on passengers before flights depart, to increase consumer confidence in air travel and make governments more willing to open borders.
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Airlines have already shown signs of struggle this year. Earlier this month Virgin Atlantic announced it was cutting 1,150 more jobs, on top of 3,500 jobs it had already cut earlier in the year. The move, it said, was necessary for its survival, and was part of a £1.2bn ($1.5bn) rescue plan to secure its future for at least 18 months.Last month, the world’s biggest airline American Airlines said it would cut 19,000 jobs in October when a government wage support scheme comes to an end. The jobs being cut make up 30% of its pre-pandemic workforce.And earlier in the year, United Airlines said as many as 36,000 jobs were at risk. Germany’s Lufthansa warned it could cut 22,000 positions, and British Airways said it was slashing up to 13,000 jobs.

Former Sainsbury’s supermarket chief executive Mike Coupe is to take over as director of Covid-19 testing at England’s Test and Trace agency.He brings huge experience in running supply chains and logistics, said the Department for Health and Social Care.But Labour shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said it would make more sense to put “those trained in actual infectious disease control in charge”.Mr Coupe, who left Sainsbury’s in May, replaces Sarah-Jane Marsh.Earlier this month she issued a “heartfelt” apology for problems with the coronavirus testing system. She blamed delays in laboratory processing.At Test and Trace, Mr Coupe will be joining other former retail executives. The head of the service, Dido Harding, worked at Tesco and Sainsbury’s before spending seven years as boss of TalkTalk.A former head of HR at Sainsbury’s is at test and trace, as is a former digital director of Waitrose.In a tweet about Mr Coupe’s appointment, first reported in the Health Service Journal, Mr Ashworth said: “How about putting those trained in actual infectious disease control in charge of Test & Trace?”Local public health teams should be leading contact tracing.”Mr Coupe has more than 35 years experience in the retail sector, and led Sainsbury’s home delivery expansion and drive for online sales.However, he is also remembered for a failed attempt to take over rival Asda after the deal was blocked by the competition. Before that there was a notable corporate gaffe. When the proposed Asda takeover was announced in May 2018 he was caught on camera singing “We’re in the Money”. He apologised, saying he had been trying to compose himself before a television interview.Mr Coupe will work with Ms Marsh in a hand-over role for about a month, after which she will return to her job as head of Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

image copyrightAmazonAmazon has announced a new payment system for real-world shops which uses a simple wave of the hand.Its new Amazon One scanner registers an image of the user’s palm, letting them pay by hovering their hand in mid-air “for about a second or so”, it says.The product will be trialled at two of Amazon’s physical stores in Seattle.But the company said it is “in active discussions with several potential customers” about rolling it out to other shops in the future.”In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternate payment or loyalty card option with a device at the checkout counter next to a traditional point of sale system,” it said. Amazon also said the system could be used for “entering a location like a stadium” or scanning yourself into work instead of using an ID card.”We believe Amazon One has broad applicability beyond our retail stores,” it added.Under the skinPalm scanners are not a brand-new technology, and there are already some commercially available solutions.”Palm-based identification is based on capturing the vein patterns of the palm,” explains Dr Basel Halak of the Electronics and Computer Science School at the University of Southampton.Why Amazon knows so much about youWhere the money is really made at Amazon”These patterns are different for each finger and for each person, and as they are hidden underneath the skin’s surface, forgery is extremely difficult.”Dr Halak said the level of security was roughly similar to a fingerprint scan, but could be used at a distance of a few inches, making it much more practical.”In comparison with other form of identifiers such as physical devices, this form of biometric authentication is based on physical characteristics that stay constant throughout one’s lifetime and are more difficult to fake, change or steal,” he said.Amazon has not detailed exactly how its version of the technology will work, beyond saying it will use “custom-built algorithms and hardware” and scan “distinct features on and below the surface” of the hand.But it said one of the reasons it chose palm recognition was that it is “more private” than some other options. “You can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm,” it said, possibly a reference to the controversy surrounding facial recognition.The firm has paused police use of its Recognition facial recognition software after civil rights advocates raised concerns about potential racial bias.Amazon said other reasons for the choice included the “intentional gesture” of holding a palm over a sensor, and the contactless nature, “which we think customers will appreciate, especially in current times”.But privacy group Big Brother Watch criticised the development.”Amazon continues to fill the market with invasive, dystopian technologies that solve non-existent problems,” its director Silkie Carlo said.”No one should have to provide biometric data in order to buy goods or services. Amazon’s attempt to normalise biometric payment and home surveillance devices risks building a world in which we’re more easily tracked and recorded, which will inevitably disempower citizens.”Early adopters can only try out the first version of the technology at two Amazon Go shops – the company’s experiment with a real-world supermarket that has no checkouts, but instead tracks the shopper and what they pick up. No Amazon account is required. To register, a customer can just insert their bank card and follow the on-screen instructions to link their palm print to that payment option, Amazon said.The company promises that the print is not stored on site, but encrypted and kept securely in the Cloud. Customers could also delete their data via website, it added.Related TopicsContactless paymentCyber-securityAmazonMore on this story

LVMH once said that Tiffany “stood for love” but it now describes the New York jeweller as a “mismanaged” company with “dismal” prospects.The Louis Vuitton-owner made the claims in a countersuit against Tiffany in a dispute over a $16.2bn takeover deal.LVMH claims Tiffany is no longer the business it agreed to buy last November before the pandemic.But Tiffany said LVMH’s “specious” arguments are “another blatant attempt” to not pay an agreed $135 a share.The jewellery firm, immortalised in Truman Capote’s novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s, has already filed a lawsuit against LVMH after the French luxury goods giant said it was walking away from the deal, which was struck last November before the pandemic.’Burning cash’Tiffany said it wanted LVMH to complete the takeover “on the agreed terms” and said it had only experienced one thirteen-week period of losses before becoming profitable again.”LVMH’s specious arguments are yet another blatant attempt to evade its contractual obligation to pay the agreed-upon price for Tiffany,” Tiffany’s chairman Roger Farah said.But in its countersuit, LVMH said Tiffany’s top five executives could receive $100m in bonuses if the deal goes ahead.”The business LVMH proposed to acquire in November 2019 – Tiffany & Co, a consistently highly-profitable luxury retail brand, no longer exists,” LVMH said in a court document.It also accused the firm of paying large dividend payments when it posted losses, taking on extra debt and “burning cash”.”Tiffany’s mismanagement of its business constitutes a blatant breach of its obligation to operate in the ordinary course,” it said.”There are many examples of mismanagement detailed in the filing, including slashing capital and marketing investments and taking on additional debt.”LVMH, which is led by France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, had initially offered $120 a share for Tiffany before raising it to $135. Since then, however, Tiffany’s share price has dropped and is now trading at $116.44.Tiffany kicked off the spat when it sued LVMH for stalling earlier this month. Questions about the impact of coronavirus – which has slammed revenue in the luxury sector and prompted a 36% drop in Tiffany sales in the first half of the year – cast doubt over the deal.

Discount chain B&M has said it will open up to 45 new stores this year after sales soared during the coronavirus lockdown.It said its business model was “well-attuned” to customer needs, with discount goods being sold at out-of-town stores.Retailers have had mixed fortunes during the coronavirus pandemic.In August, retail sales were boosted by increased spending on DIY, but clothing sales still lagged.Supermarkets and DIY stores are among the retailers that have seen high demand during the pandemic as people stocked up on food and home improvement goods during and after lockdown.Last week, Tesco and Morrisons again put limits on the number of some items that shoppers could buy to try to prevent a repeat of panic-buying which led to shortages in March.Rising to the challengeB&M, which sells goods including DIY and foodstuffs, said its staff had done well to keep up with demand during the half year.It initially closed 60 stores in shopping centres during the pandemic, but reopened them quite quickly.A spokesman for the group said that a lot of people were looking for ways of keeping spending down during the lockdown, which attracted new customers.Those customers have kept coming back.Group sales jumped by 25.3% between 29 March and 26 September, and the retailer raised its earnings forecast for the period to about £285m from its previous estimate of £250m to £270m.”Our people have risen to the many challenges posed by the Covid-19 crisis, not least in serving our customers through a period of high demand, keeping our shelves filled, providing a clean and safe shopping environment, as well as sourcing higher volumes than we had planned,” said Simon Arora, B&M chief executive.”I thank them all for their commitment, hard work and resilience.”B&M said it expected to open up to 45 new stores in the year to April, mostly in the fourth quarter of the year. However, it warned that some smaller stores could be closed.Despite bright prospects for some retailers, others have made dire warnings about the future of retail in the UK.Last week, Next boss Lord Wolfson warned that thousands of traditional retail jobs were “unviable” because of the accelerated shift to online shopping brought about by the pandemic.

Mining giant Rio Tinto is facing accusations that a mine it abandoned in Papua New Guinea two decades ago is leaking poisonous waste into rivers. More than 150 people living in Bougainville have filed a complaint with the Australian authorities.They say that waste from the copper and gold mine is causing health problems for 12,000 people living nearby. The mining firm says it is willing to speak to the current owners of the Panguna mine and the local community.It comes after Rio Tinto’s boss and two other senior executives resigned earlier this month following the news that the company had destroyed sacred Aboriginal sites in Pilbara, Western Australia.Rio Tinto: Church of England condemns Aboriginal destruction”Our rivers are poisoned with copper, our homes get filled with dust from the tailings mounds, our kids get sick from the pollution,” said Theonila Roka Matbob, a traditional landowner and member of the local parliament in Bougainville.The Panguna mine was one of the region’s biggest for copper and gold in the 1970s and 1980s, but widespread anger among local communities over environmental damage and distribution of profits forced its closure more than two decades ago.Rio Tinto handed its stake in the mine to the government of Papua New Guinea four years ago, but many feel the company should still take responsibility for cleaning up the site.”These are not problems we can fix with our bare hands. We urgently need Rio Tinto to do what’s right and deal with the disaster they have left behind,” Ms Matbob said.A spokesman for the British-Australian firm told the Sydney Morning Herald that it was willing to engage with the local community. “We are aware of the deterioration of mining infrastructure at the site and surrounding areas, and claims of resulting adverse environmental and social, including human rights, impacts,” a spokesman told the newspaper.

Butchers, bricklayers and welders are in such short supply that UK employers should be able to recruit them from abroad when EU freedom of movement rules end, government advisers say. The Migration Advisory Committee also wants senior care workers and nursing assistants to be added to the “shortage occupation list”.And it warned of shortages in frontline social care staff as most roles do not earn enough to be included on the list.No 10 says it will consider its report.MAC chairman, Professor Brian Bell, said it was “extraordinary” that skilled jobs could not be filled, pointing out the problem was “sector-wide”.The committee was asked to review what medium-skill occupations should be included on the shortage occupation list ahead of the introduction of a new points-based visa system on 1 January.The shortage occupation list, which highlights the occupations employers are having difficulty in finding workers for, includes a minimum salary requirement of £20,480. It currently includes jobs such as engineers, scientists and social workers.Patel sets out post-Brexit immigration plansHow will the UK points-based immigration system work?Prof Bell said: “The number of migrants coming to work in the UK has already decreased and we are likely to see an increase in unemployment over the next year as the economic impact of the pandemic continues, so this has been a very challenging time to look at the shortage occupation lists.”It has made us more willing to recommend some roles for inclusion simply because it is the sensible thing to do, but we have been clear that migration is not always the solution.”‘Increase wages’The committee also recommended additions to the separate lists for the devolved nations. In its report, the MAC says fishmongers, bakers and horticultural workers from abroad should be allowed to work in Northern Ireland; childminders and nursery nurses in Scotland, and health professionals in Wales.The MAC said there was a need to make social care jobs more attractive to UK workers by increasing salaries.Prof Bell said it was his “personal view” that wages should be “significantly, significantly higher” than £10 an hour.The government has previously said it wanted employers in the social care sector to invest more in training and development for people already in the UK – including EU citizens – and it had provided additional funding to support this.Downing Street said it would be looking at the MAC’s recommendations closely before responding.”We have set out that we want employers to focus on investing in the domestic workforce,” the prime minister’s official spokesman said.He added: “It is worth noting that the Migration Advisory Committee itself is clear that immigration isn’t the solution to addressing staff levels in the social care sector.”

Tesco has set a target to sell four times as much meat alternative protein by 2025 as demand for vegan products climbs.The supermarket giant wants a 300% boost in sales compared with 2018 as part of a sustainability drive.It will aim to sell more plant-based sausages and burgers, as well as products designed to emulate meat.The UK market for meat alternatives could be worth more than £1.1bn by 2024, according to analyst firm Mintel.Tesco said meat and dairy production had a “significant impact” on environments such as the Amazon and Cerrado regions of Brazil, and “is acknowledged as a major contributor to climate change”.The UK’s largest retailer aims to introduce more plant-based product lines, as well as selling more of the lines it already stocks, a spokesman said.These include “ready meals, breaded-meat alternatives, plant-based sausages, burgers, quiches, pies, [and] party food”.Why are more people going vegan?
Oprah and Jay-Z invest in plant-based milk firm
Tesco said it wanted to focus on making the products affordable and innovative. It will also stock meat alternatives alongside meat – “for example Richmond sausages and Richmond plant-based sausages to feature together,” it said. It will also start to publish sales of plant-based proteins as a percentage of overall protein sales every year. Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said: “Our transparency on protein sales and our new sales target for meat alternatives gives us the platform to becoming more sustainable and will provide customers with even more choice.”Tesco set its target to sit alongside measures it has developed in partnership with environmental charity WWF.Tanya Steele, WWF chief executive, said: “Tackling the environmental impact of what we eat and how we produce it has never been so urgent.Earlier this month a WWF report said that wildlife populations have declined more than two thirds in the last 50 years.Ms Steele said: “The food system has been identified as the biggest culprit, but also presents one of the greatest opportunities to reverse this trend; rebalancing our diets is a critical part of that.”Tesco has also been taking a number of steps to reduce food waste, including a partnership with food-sharing app Olio.
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Between 2014 and 2019 sales of plant-based foods in the UK sales of grew 40%, from £582m to an estimated £816m, analyst firm Mintel said in January. It expects sales to be more than £1.1bn by 2024.All of the UK supermarkets are making moves aimed at making their businesses more environmentally friendly.In January, Asda started trialling refills at a sustainability store, and Sainsbury’s pledged £1bn to cut emissions to zero by 2040.In August ,Morrisons said it was considering ditching all of its plastic bags for life.

By Leo Kelion & Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology reportersNokia is set to become a major beneficiary of Huawei being blocked from the UK’s 5G networks.The Finnish telecoms firm has struck a deal to become the largest equipment provider to BT.Nokia will now provide additional base stations and antennas to let EE customers’ devices make calls and transmit data via the UK firm’s 5G “radio access network”.The deal will also see Nokia replace Huawei in BT’s 2G and 4G networks.EE’s network already uses Nokia to provide its 3G service.The UK government announced in July that all the UK’s mobile providers were being banned from buying new Huawei 5G equipment after 31 December, and must also remove all the Chinese firm’s 5G kit from their networks by 2027.The decision, which was taken on national security grounds, effectively ended a strong relationship between BT and Huawei that dated back to 2005.Extended relationshipEarlier this year, BT said Nokia’s equipment was used at about a third of its 4G sites, which were being upgraded to 5G, while Huawei’s kit was used at the remaining ones.At present, Nokia’s kit provides coverage to EE customers across parts of London, the Midlands and various rural locations. The latest deal will extend BT’s use of its telecoms infrastructure products to further cities and towns including Aberdeen, Cambridge, Dundee, Exeter, Southampton and York.Reuters reported that it covered about 11,600 sites.It means Nokia is now set to account for about two-thirds of BT’s radio access kit.”It was inevitable that some of Huawei’s equipment was going to be replaced because of the government’s decision,” commented John Delaney, a telecoms analyst at IDC.”The big change here is that BT wasn’t planning to use Nokia’s equipment in many densely populated areas, and now they are. But apart from that it’s not a major departure from their earlier plans.”It is expected that BT will soon strike a deal to buy kit from a second vendor to avoid becoming solely dependent on Nokia once Huawei’s kit is banned outright.”With this next stage of our successful relationship with Nokia, we will continue to lead the rollout of fixed and mobile networks to deliver stand-out experiences for customers,” said BT’s chief executive Philip Jansen in a statement.Nokia’s president Pekka Lundmark said he was delighted to become “BT’s largest infrastructure partner”.A spokesman for Huawei claimed that reducing the number of infrastructure equipment providers risked “delaying the 5G roll-out and undermining diversity of supply so essential to network security”.OpenRan experimentsBT had previously picked another Nordic telecoms kit provider – Ericsson – to replace Huawei’s equipment in its “core” – the most sensitive parts of its network that route data and voice calls across computer servers to get them to the right destination.Ericsson is the favourite to be named as BT’s second radio access network kit supplier, but it is still likely to lag Nokia in terms of the number of 5G masts and base stations it would provide..Nokia’s deal with BT also says the two will work together to develop an “OpenRan ecosystem”. This refers to a plan to eventually standardise the hardware used in radio access networks so that one supplier can be switched for another via software alone, avoiding the need to rip out one firm’s customised equipment and replace it with another’s.Vodafone is already testing such technology in Powys, Wales.Related TopicsCyber-security5GBT GroupMobile phonesHuaweiTelecommunicationNokiaMore on this story

First-time home buyers are having to save up more to take out mortgages. Most lenders are now asking for a deposit of 15% of the house’s value. That’s a big change from six months ago, when it was common for them to offer mortgages with deposits of only 5% or 10%. For thousands of would-be home buyers, that means saving up for several more years.Video by Jeremy Howell