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All travellers to the US may be required to complete a seven-day quarantine even if they are vaccinated or have a negative test, under proposals being considered by the White House.

Meanwhile, all travellers reaching France from outside the European Union, including the UK, will have to present a negative Covid test less than 48 hours old, the government announced on Wednesday. Non-vaccinated travellers from within the EU will have to show a negative test less than 24 hours old.

The proposed rule change could have a significant impact on tourism, given the uncertainty over receiving a negative test in time and the added price tag for rapid results.

The moves are aimed at tackling a new surge in infections as worries caused by the newly detected omicron variant loom.

Good post Mark and well balanced,

The challenges are

Pension payments
Fleet & staff payments
Reduction in business travel
Increased costs

The latest variant is a mystery, early reports suggesting non severe symptoms. However the bigger issue that has spooked the market seems to be the issue of a ‘variant’ rather than this variant.

The fundamental issue is this - people need to look past morbidity and hospitalisation when you look at variants. Variants prosper under infection numbers, therefore as long as infection is rife, variants will continue and that there lies the problem.

Travel is currently one variant away from a total lockdown, hysteria. That for me is what is frustrating, I’m always happy to declare my position - LTH average at 1.90’s

Long term I’m hopeful, short term I think significant pain to come - there will for the most part be a rights issue coming. The air Europa deal looks dead and buried and confidence to Travel has yet again taken a kicking. Just got to ride it out…. Virgin looks to be in trouble, if US has a change of heart that’s them done I reckon.

I was hoping to share your optimism, however with Israel, Switzerland both banning all UK arrivals, Spain banning non vaccinated, it seems only likely to grow in the coming days.

Pcr testing is also a blow, to confidence around travel rather than the practical element. I can’t see any return to business travel either in this climate.

As someone else said time to switch off and check back next April

I think the issue now is around the continued build of debt. Back at the beginning there was very limited debt when the SP was higher. More restrictions, damaged sentiment, air Europa deal under extreme scrutiny, huge monthly pension payments. These are the factors which suppress the SP, I would hope most of the pain came on Friday but who knows..

I concur fully with your post, I would also suggest that is why the current SP is less than 30% of its high. It’s been absolutely battered and is not without risk. However it’s managed to weather a pretty rough storm, it’s mostly recognised that some blue skies are ahead.

This is true indeed… currently there are over 100 flights at any one time in the sky from BA pretty much 7 days a week, this compares to about 40 in July and it was up to 100 at the end of august and then back down to 70 in September but now it’s 100 each day. Will be interesting to see the increased in traffic from the bottleneck of family wanting to visit etc around the world

A couple of views I’d be interested in.

All the news is now through and there hasn’t been any exponential rise, indeed we are still below £2. We are also approaching some dark months ahead with likely covid hysteria

I don’t buy into the oil price link to iag sp being held down. As with all supply chains the cost is passed on so IAG raise their price as with all other airlines same with Heathrow costs. Hence the magic word inflation

The reality is that there is a huge bottleneck of people wishing or needing to travel who have been shackled for close to 18months. Therefore an extra £100 on the price isn’t going to stop them flying

IAG need to put their feet down around profit guidance this year or loss and come out with some seriously strong forward guidance around projections or bookings

After the November results, it should lead into a very strong 4th quarter.

For all the talk of £2 it should be noted just how depressed it has become even with the last share rights issue. IAG was a ftse 100 stalwart pension fund with a dividend, this isn’t some AIM start up

It’s a real concern that some people are writing that they would be influenced into making any form of financial decision by any member on this board.

From my very limited knowledge and experience I am yet to read or see anything on this board that is anymore relevant than having a Random chat with some bloke at the bar or bus stop.

The trouble with all these boards is that they lose all sense of purpose and descend into some sort of bizarre Harry Potter world of good v bad. BB and Fugazi become Pantomine like villains with posts that become more and more extreme to attract more attention from those who feel the need to defend IAG like it’s their own child.

For all the talk of Rights issues etc - the owner publicly stated they won’t need one, yet people on this board swear blind he is wrong and they will do one. That should tell you all you need to know? Who would you trust, the owner or a random bloke on a message board….

These boards are good fun and informative when it’s a balanced mix of views and opinions, but like always it ends up being hijacked by a handful of people, some of which profess to not even be invested. Which is just bizarre, they no doubt model themselves as self imposed saviours of others who are invested and are trying to show them the light no less and errors of their ways.

It’s like an virtual world of speakers corner in Hyde park… it’s getting very surreal and strange and all that happens is people just stop reading. No opinion from anyone is going to have any impact on the sp. if you are susceptible to selling or buying on what people are saying on this board, question whether you should be buying shares at all

If only all this energy could be harnessed for better things like volunteering in the community or helping others the world would probably be a better place.

I would certainly like to think so.. my concerns are as follows - we have now seen 90% of the travel news to come and remember the market is always about speculation! The sp has been fairly flat the last week or so, I Would hope that it would pick up next week on the back of Fridays announcements.

There are a few more nuggets to come -
Confirmation of date of removal of pcr testing
Confirmation of us opening up
BA results Nov (won’t be pretty but hopefully they can articulate the uptick in bookings and look forward, remember they still haven’t issued any profit guidance for this year
Dec result of EU competition enquiry into Iberia takeover of 2 internal Spanish airlines.

BA owner has already ruled out further rights issue so we know fingers crossed shouldn’t be an issue there.

I would like to see some northern trajectory soon because it needs to hit and hold £2 soon in order to meaningfully move up

My neighbour is a BA Captain, flys us routes - he’s been pretty spot on so far with his updates.

Spoke to him today he says BA been told US to open Monday 15th Nov. Obviously take with a pinch of salt, but it would Make sense, a week or thereabouts before thanksgiving

Knows better than the owner of IAG clearly…

A lot of people are getting way carried away here.. a large majority of people are still well in the red with this SP me included with an average of £1.96

IAG is official the worst performing stock of the FTSE this year followed by Rolls Royce. It had lost 45% of its value at 1.34 this month from its March Highs of £2.23 which is still incredibly low.

Prior to covid this was trading at close to £6 per share with a dividend. Yes of course there has been dilution etc with share rights.

But and it’s a big but… this share still has a mountain to climb in terms of recovery and future dividend. Against a backdrop of huge uncertainty.

However a few positive things could see keep going for a while -

Removal of hotel quarantine like Ireland has done
Removal of PCR testing date confirmed
Us travel date in November confirmed
S Africa, Thailand and Brazil taken off red list

I called this share right, except for one massive glaring error - I didn’t see the delta variant this year or the damage it would cause wiping 50% of the sp)

So my point in closing is this -
1. A few nice rises yes, but still a mountain to climb
2. Plenty of uptake and good news ahead
3. I new variant and it’s back to square 1

Ba owner Luis Gullego has already confirmed BA won’t be doing a cash call this year.. read his article in the Sunday times from 2 weeks ago

I hear you! It is desperately frustrating… although even old sleepy jo is working out he can’t keep shut forever. I read a fascinating piece in the telegraph this weekend that ultimately went to great odds to explain that even scientist now admit they are baffled with Covid and how it is responding. The only thing they can agree apparently is that a wave occurs in a bell motion -
I.e up and then down but they can’t work out why or what factors make that happen. We are seeing the same decreasing pattern as before but With no lockdown!

Fugazi - you’ve gone from MASSIVE deramping, to then overnight becoming an IAG poster boy, to now ultra deramp mode.. what is going on ???

Plenty of cash in the bankNo rights issue Good recovery from other airlines in groupCargo up

this is the key statement from the last quarter report which it based its sums on -
·
Current passenger capacity plans for quarter 2 are for around 25 per cent of 2019 capacity, but remain uncertain and subject to review

Big blue you are turning into new Fugazi and old Fugazi is turning into the old positive Big Blue lol!!! I can’t keep up its like a soap opera..

But yet could be right old chap! Hard to call, however I wouldn’t want to be out on the next 3 travel updates over the course of the next week. Although to be fair at close to £2 I can’t go anywhere!

Marab - forgive my ignorance, but what is the fear of a rights issue ?

As a holder surely I will have 3 options -

1. Buy at a discounted rate, which will then offset any dilution of the Sp as my overall holding would of been averaged down

2. Ignore the rights issue - not recommended obviously

3. Or sell my rights which whilst creating a capital gain would offset any loss of my current holding by the dilution.

Happy to be corrected by anyone who has more knowledge ?

1. Expats able to not have to isolate from Sunday 1st august
2. 33 countries likely to be able to visit uk without isolating including US ironically
3. Large increase in green list being reported in the telegraph

Let’s see what the week holds… the SP has held up given the us extension of travel ban to uk and Europe