British airline easyJet boosted its liquidity through a new five-year loan facility of $1.87 billion, backed by a partial guarantee from Britain, helping to ease concerns about its finances as the pandemic continues to stop travel, Reuters reported. Like most European airlines, cash-strapped easyJet had been hoping to be gearing up for a recovery this spring, but with Britain, its biggest market, back in lockdown, flying is expected to stay at minimal levels for several more months.

Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson’s airline which has been hammered by the pandemic, is close to finalising a deal to raise just over $230 million from two planes, enabling it to repay a loan taken on as part of its rescue deal last year, Reuters reported. COVID-19 restrictions stopped significant levels of travel on Virgin’s main UK to U.S. routes during 2020, bringing the airline to its knees. To survive the crisis it shed almost half of its 10,000 workforce and underwent a “solvent recapitalisation” last September.

The number of corporate bankruptcies in Germany experienced a “noticeable” increase compared with pre-pandemic levels at the end of last year, though not as bad as feared, Bloomberg News reported. It’s the first snapshot of the country’s regular insolvency trends following a temporary suspension of filing requirements as part of Germany’s pandemic support measures. In December, 921 partnerships and corporations in the country were reported as bankrupt, just under 30% higher than in the previous three months, according to a report by the IWH Halle Institute for Economic Research.

British retailer Marks & Spencer warned on Friday its popular Percy Pig sweets could be hit by tariffs if it re-exports the product to European Union countries, including Ireland, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Steve Rowe said that the pink sweets, along with about a third of the products in M&S’s food business, are subject to very complex “rules of origin” regulations that form part of Britain’s trade deal with the EU struck on Christmas Eve. The rules relate to the composition of individual products and how much of it has been altered in the United Kingdom.

Severe coronavirus restrictions around the world to contain surging infection rates weighed on fuel sales, weakening the prospect of energy demand recovery in the first half of 2021, Reuters reported. Most of Europe is now under the strictest restrictions, according to the Oxford stringency index, which assesses indicators such as travel bans and the closure of schools and workplaces. The United Kingdom’s new national lockdown is expected to last until mid-February at least.

Portugal is confident the European Commission will approve its plan to rescue ailing flag carrier TAP, Finance Minister Joao Leao said in an interview, adding that he expected that green light by the end of March, Reuters reported. The government unveiled its overhaul plan last month, proposing 2,000 job cuts by 2022 and pay cuts of up to 25%, while saying the airline would need around 2 billion euros ($2.46 billion) in extra funds with state guarantees to cover financing needs until 2024.

Germany wants to extend beyond January a freeze on insolvency rules put in place to avoid a wave of corporate bankruptcies due to the coronavirus pandemic, Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht told the Handelsblatt newspaper, Reuters reported. Last March, the government offered respite to companies that find themselves in financial trouble due to the pandemic by allowing them to delay filing for bankruptcy until the end of September.

Rising corporate debt and the prospect of further Covid-19 lockdowns pose a systemic risk to France’s financial system that may rise in the coming months, according to the country’s central bank, Bloomberg News reported. Debts of non-financial companies are now the greatest vulnerability in the system, the Bank of France said in its semi-annual review of financial risks. While the second lockdown starting in November didn’t hit some companies as severely as the first, a slow economic recovery will make it tough for some to pay off debts built up since the start of the crisis.

Ryanair slashed its annual traffic forecast by around 5 million passengers on Thursday, saying fresh lockdowns in Britain and Ireland targeting a highly contagious new variant of COVID-19 would leave the countries with “few, if any” flights, Reuters reported. The Irish low-cost carrier, Europe’s largest, also harshly criticised public health measures, saying Ireland’s travel curbs were “inexplicable and ineffective” and called on the country and Britain to accelerate the pace of vaccine rollouts.