Member Info for big-blue

I'm surprised to see Jet2 still making progress. My indicators were it is on the verge of going under. Now on the beach has restarted it's marketing along with TUI, something is going to have to give unless there are more fund raisings to get them through a low 2022 market.

Meanwhile, back at the batcave, sector is being traded just below a gain as the mm try and encourage some buys. So it will all be kicking off first week in the new year. There will be 3 days of news not including this evening - plenty of time for new year travel announcements like from Germany today where more and more countries throw the towel in trying to stop the spread. Our government needs to pressed when will SAGE be disbanded or under what criteria will it no longer need to report. Just the discussion alone will be enough to give the sense of moving forward and out of the pandemic [my own little bit of nudge theory].

It's half day today isn't it? I better stock up on the bargain buckets and the Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka before 12 then.

Have a really ****ty horrible new year everyone.

wrt to travel though, Germany has just lifted quarantine for UK arrivals, not in Feb but now. Self-isolation times are being pulled back in many areas, not UK yet. All this points to an opening up ahead of spikes or hospital/deaths feeding through. The reason, there isn't anything that can be done about the spread and the SA data shows it peaks quick and declines rapidly. It is very clear that the methodology to manage the consequences of omicron are very different than with delta. If you follow the delta model, then yes you could be looking at lockdowns and restrictions extending into Feb. But omicron is a proved to be quite different and governments need to be pushed into not following the delta response, which many seem to be doing, and accept the real world data from places like SA and manage living with covid understanding topping the spread with omicron is pretty meaningless. The current inbound testing for passengers to the UK is completely meaningless and has no value except for someone's phd having access to an unusually high sample to test. Yet, those testing requirements are putting off millions of passengers. Now, I don't have to present a negative test to go to Germany, but I do have to present a fit to fly to return to the UK and then isolate until a day 2 PCR is negative (if it isn't lost in the post of course). It has taken some 4 to 5 weeks for the mass TV media to slowly admit what was known day 1 in SA, omicron is much milder and therefore the consequences on hospitals and deaths would far less than delta. Politicians need to question the expert crap that is being fed to them much more harshly and make bold moves to restore liberties without delay. SAGE should be disbanded immediately - that will be the first good strong indicator now that it has lost its way and become a political lobby group.

Jtan, those things are significant deal breakers designed to put people off travel and it has worked. The pax numbers show that. And then there is the prospect of sudden and often inexplicable changes to restrictions leaving people stranded or facing large hotel quarantine bills. Again, very much designed to persuade people not to travel. Omicron is the end game and we will find out in just a few short weeks whether the travel disruption is to be maintained as part of the big reset to deliberately reduce flying on a permanent basis, or whether they restrictions were purley related to covid and a return to real free travel precovid can resume. Even the proposal to force mask wearing post pandemic as a new permanent measure will have a negative impact from a perception point of view. There is going to be a fight between airlines and regulators going forward.

Seriously Jtan? There are significant restrictions on travel from testing to quarantines to red lists all over the place.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/south-africa-says-omicron-wave-swiftly-subsiding-with-no-major-increase-in-deaths/

It is over in SA

If Germany is waking up to the reality it means her minion states will quickly follow suite. Indeed, Marcon is now humiliated in having to reverse his a special ban on the British. I'm pretty sure his attempt to target uniquely British people with a transit ban is actually illegal under the EU's own race relations law. If the UK targeted French citizens you would expect hellfire and brimstone coming out of the commission. Why is Marcon not charged?

What is happening is very much in line with what I was hoping to see, a rapid change in the restrictions and travel rules as governments give up trying to control the flow of such a contagious virus. What's more, whilst numbers are being twisted about hospital cases the real world impact of omicron is in staff shortages and not large increased sick people. Certainly those with no vaccine will end up with omicron and some of those end up in the hospital as new actual covid patients. But the physical limit of the spread will cap the rate of those in hospital and they are being processed far quicker due to new drugs. What is being poorly reported is the number of patients with the virus purley because they were tested in hospital despite the fact they were in hospital for something other than covid. It should be reported the percentage of people in hospital testing positive against any change of overnight stays for treatment of covid. That number then shows there is no risk to the system. But the twisted numbers are being used by all manner of lobby groups to keep hold of the lockdown power. It is the end game for these people and I hope there is a quick clean cutting out of these groups rather than a messy drawn out return to precovid living. SAGE needs to be disbanded now as first step to returning to normal.

bobbins, how much will the English tolerate? Brexit is your answer. We have the balls to do thingd. We left one union, we can do it again at the drop of hat. I don't think the devolved assemblies really appreciate that!

Such a long list, for such a long time, shows a high level of ignorance and narcissism, likes to only hear echoes of his own thoughts.

Yes sundurfer, glad to know you have no insight into anything I post. I am very happy with that!!!

Baxter, I actually think if the poll showing 70% of the English want Scotland to leave the union then the once in a generation ref would have been won by the independance people. I think just enough Scots were so freaked out about it, they played safe and voted remain.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/covid-debate-shows-why-england-is-another-country-and-im-glad-to-live-in-scotland-tommy-sheppard-mp-3510211

This is how the Scottish are represented north of the border. God help the poor Scotts if this is the kind of bigoted representatives you have. He's all over the place. Obviously these war mongers are not being held to account in the Hollyrood 'parliament' [stupidly expensive folly]. Personally if the Scots want to go it alone, then go. I think 70% of the English share the same view - be off with you. One small detail. You pay for it out of YOUR own back pocket, England will not cover you and we'll start spending your Barnett formula money on the English, where it should be now.

Go on - do another once in a generation referendum and just GO!

Investing.com has given IAG +0.01%

It's a start! The recovery is clearly underway :)

I'm sure my death certificate will get lost in the post......

We seem to have a bit of an afternoon rally dragging the sector back to some sort of neutrality. What I need now is some rumour about Easy J being taken over. Looking at the expansion of Wizz over the last year going east and increasing its fleet and routes and so on, I'm now of the opinion that it was perhaps a bit more serious than originally thought. Clearly the offer was laughable, but not that an offer was made. A fishing expedition.

As omicron is def looking like the end game, and this will become increasingly vocalised over the first half of January, then mid to late January may also be the great reconciling of the industry. Who'll go under, who'll merge with who, who will buy out who? Will BA be spun off? Will IAG resurrect Air Europa deal? Will a completely new consortium suddenly vacuum up a load of weak names? Will Norwegian merge with the new spin off of it's old long haul and **** off everybody for being so underhanded with the deal? Who knows but I think January is going to be a fun month.

marab, the whole freaking planet is a red zone at the moment!

Clearly a bit of a left winger, but the other side of the question, why should the vaccinated suffer is also coming through,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/30/americans-should-be-learning-live-with-covid-19-unvaccinated-are-making-that-impossible/

Clearly a bit of a right winger, but the questioning over what is really going on is surfacing and the protests planet wide for some weeks now show it.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/30/stop-letting-them-test-you-breaking-the-covid-construct/

"even with Omicron being 70% less more deadly this will have substantial human cost."

Compared to what though? Lost cancer treatment? Seasonal non-covid related deaths? Does not the NHS make the same noises about a crippled service every ****ing year no matter what? And even if omicron does increase hospital stays, how far from break point is that? We saw with delta, far more increases but the system didn't need ANY of the Nightingale hospitals beds.

The NHS is always being presented as being on the edge requiring yet more tens of billions, or else teddy gets it. Many voters are tired of hearing it and saw the waste of the Nightingale hospitals and are a lot wiser now thanks to the pandemic.

Those new units imo are an appeasement to a strong and vocal expert lobby that is losing face on a massive scale and at risk of having everything it has said and pushed the world into doing being questioned in a way they didn't think possible. I get a sense that many are sounding quite worried at the impertinence that mere mortals would dare to question their proclamations. Look how the latest doom and gloom presentations were questioned in England and then not acted on and how the advisors then spawned themselves all over the media trying to give instructions bypassing the government to do what they say - Chris Whitty has a lot to answer too. This story of digging into the data and how it has been measured, gathered, processed, interpreted, presented and the conclusion s presented has a long way to go. Only as recently as December did the first questions start to be raised, by city investment institutions no less who then set their own unbiased people on some number crunching, which was then passed to government ministers who raised it at cabinet. There is a lot of stones to be turned over and an awful lot of creepy crawlies to come out. Maks is one of the biggest revealing there role as super spreaders.

The sector is on a decline. The santa rally appears to have been just that [see fordm - he DOES exist!]. Now we have a decline over the quite trading period. I am almost blase about this retrace. I find this zone of trading with markets open/closed/half-day/holiday to be somewhat meaningless. I will be interested to see the first week of the new year. By the end of the first week all the detritus from the global riots from lockdown communities should be subsiding, the Christmas omicron hospital and death data ringing crystal clear, experts still trying to buy more time having their integrity openly questioned by senior ministers [and their views on SA exposing the real reason why they snubbed SA data], the travel industry in full blown new year sales mode and with it a rapid dropping of travel restrictions and testing starting with UK and America. Tourist hot spots to announce they will have no restrictions in place by the spring break season. Yes, I think that will all happen in the first week so 'topping up time' maybe running out for these levels. For IAG, results are in February so IAG is going to be much more turbulent and the dreaded RI predictions form some brokers for the 'early in the new year' will be impossible to avoid running up to the results unless there are very clear and specific statements ahead of the game, unlike last time where it took a month for IAG to respond and even then it was in terms of a BA credit facility and not something regarding the whole group. It is difficult to predict IAG, but I stick to 160 by end of January assuming no RI and RNSs are timely and direct in conent.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/12/amsterdam-cancels-anti-covid-rule-demo-citing-public-order-fears/

And the hand of authorianism descends on the people to restrict the protests - what is the difference between the above news from the Netherlands and the crackdown on free speech in HK?