Nearly 200 airports in Europe will face insolvency in the coming months if passenger traffic does not start recovering by the end of the year, airports body ACI Europe said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. An estimated 193 European hubs are considered “at-risk airports”, ACI said, adding that they contribute to economic activity that creates 277,000 jobs and 12.4 billion euros ($14.66 billion) of European GDP.

The municipality of Amsterdam is introducing a pause button for people with problematic debts, AlKhaleej Today reported. This measure prevents them from receiving direct debits and reminders until a payment process has been found with the help of a debt counselor. Amsterdam hopes with this measure to offer peace of mind to people who are in debt. “Debts lead to a lot of stress. People in debt lose their jobs more often and often have more relationship stress. Financial problems can even lead to a decrease in IQ”, says Alderman Marjolein Moorman.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG told staff that winter schedule cutbacks announced last week will cause it to bench an additional 125 aircraft and temporarily close large parts of its administrative operations, Bloomberg News reported. The reduction will cut the carrier’s active fleet back to the level it operated in the 1970s, with the impact filtering through its operations, it said in a letter to employees seen by Bloomberg. Lufthansa had previously intended to use the planes in an already reduced schedule for the coming months, it said in the letter.

New restrictions imposed across Europe to curb the spread of Covid-19 forced Europcar Mobility Group to withdraw its earnings guidance for the remainder of this year, with the firm anticipating a return to pre-virus trading only by 2023, Bloomberg News reported. The French car rental group pulled its prediction for the 2020 financial year “due to the uncertainties derived from the second wave” of the virus, it said in a statement on Monday as it presented its third quarter results.

In recent weeks, moratoria on bank loans have expired in some EU countries and, anecdotally, payments have resumed with only a small fraction showing distress. Yet the macroeconomic outlook is uncertain and we cannot rule out a weak recovery with a significant build-up of bad loans, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The European Central Bank estimates that in a severe but plausible scenario non-performing loans at euro area banks could reach €1.4tn, well above the levels of the 2008 financial and 2011 EU sovereign debt crises.

The Greek government's opposition is trying to block new insolvency legislation that it argues would leave vulnerable mortgage holders more exposed to repossession during the pandemic, Yahoo! Finance reported. The conservative government is overhauling its bankruptcy regulations, replacing a protection program for distressed loans on primary homes, which expired in July, with a state subsidy program. The government says the proposed changes would be better targeted and would ease pressure on banks still coping with a mountain of loans left unpaid during years of financial crisis.

Spain is seeking to use its share of the EU’s €750bn coronavirus recovery fund to revitalise its stalled economy, with the government likening it to the country’s 1986 entry into the bloc or the creation of the European single market, the Financial Times reported. Madrid plans to borrow €27bn against future grants from the fund, long before they are formally approved by the EU. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s minority administration hopes to use the money to push through a 2021 budget and consolidate power, while boosting an economy hit hard by the coronavirus crisis.

Edinburgh Woollen Mill has been given more time to find buyers or new investors for its struggling businesses as an alternative to putting them into administration, the Financial Times reported. The group, controlled by Switzerland-based tycoon Philip Day, had already filed a notice of intent to appoint FRP as administrators, giving it protection from any legal action by its creditors. The notice was extended for two weeks on Friday.

The UK economic recovery lost steam in October as tighter Covid-19 restrictions limited activity more than expected in both the manufacturing and services sectors, prompting further job cuts and fuelling fears of a renewed economic downturn, the Financial Times reported. The IHS Markit flash, or interim, purchasing managers’ index for services fell to 52.3 in October, down from 56.1 in the previous month and the lowest since June.

Banks have asked specialist debt collectors to help lead the recovery of tens of billions of pounds of government-backed small business loans, as they prepare for an expected wave of defaults and fraud cases, the Financial Times reported. UK Finance, the trade group, is leading discussions to create a centralised “utility” that will deal with defaults on government-backed bounce back loans.