Headlines

Passenger traffic at Grupo Aeromexico in December reached its highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mexican airline said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Aeromexico transported 1.74 million passengers last month, or 98.9% of the 1.76 million people it moved in December 2019, the company said in a statement. Aeromexico's total offer, measured in available seat-kilometers (ASKs), was equivalent to 82.6% of the capacity of December 2019, the company said. Domestic capacity was up 13.6% from December 2019, while international capacity was 70.7% of that month.

Ireland will no longer require vaccinated arriving travellers to present a negative COVID-19 test, Prime Minister Micheál Martin said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. A government spokesman said the change would take effect on Thursday. Unvaccinated travellers will still be required to show a negative PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before arrival. Ireland introduced the testing measure a month ago to slow the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant. Omicron now accounts for almost all Irish infections, which have rocketed to record levels in the last two weeks.

A Canadian restaurant that’s made headlines for bucking COVID rules has filed for bankruptcy, the Toronto Star reported. Nique Restaurant Inc. filed for an “assignment in bankruptcy” on Dec. 29, 2021, according to a notice of insolvency that ran in The Spectator on Wednesday. The notice provides few details about the bankruptcy, but notes that the first meeting of creditors of the business will be held later this month in Burlington.

Households in Europe are set to pay an average of 54% more for energy than they did two years ago, due to soaring natural gas and power prices across the region, according to Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg News reported. The average residential consumer will spend 1,850 euros ($2,095) on energy this year, up from 1,200 euros in 2020, analysts at the bank said in a research note. The biggest increases will be in Italy and the U.K., where bills will jump by about 950 euros. Europe’s energy crisis is hitting households, sending bills rocketing and pushing many into fuel poverty.

Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line on Wednesday canceled sailings amid rising fears of Omicron-related coronavirus infections that have dampened the nascent recovery of the pandemic-ravaged cruise industry, Reuters reported. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd called off its Spectrum of the Seas cruise for Jan. 6 after nine guests on its Jan. 2 trip were identified as close contacts to a local Hong Kong COVID-19 case. The contacts have tested negative but the cruise ship will return to Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong on Jan.

The bonds backed in bitcoin (BTC) that the Government of El Salvador will launch will be available in February and March 2022. This was confirmed on January 4, by the Minister of Finance, Alejandro Zelaya, CVBJ.biz reported. The Salvadoran official hopes that the strategy will be successful. Recall that, as reported by CriptoNoticias in November, the Central American country seeks to raise USD $1 billion through these bonds. The money will be used both to build the Bitcoin City and to acquire more BTC (to date, the nation has 1,391 bitcoins according to publicly available information).

Singapore is about to get its first blank-check listings, as special purpose acquisition companies backed by Temasek Holdings Pte. and Tikehau Capital SCA kicked off their sales, Bloomberg News reported. Vertex Technology Acquisition Corporation Ltd., sponsored by state investor Temasek’s Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd., is seeking at least S$170 million ($125 million) in its initial public offering, while Tikehau-backed Pegasus Asia could raise at least S$150 million, prospectuses filed on Thursday showed.

A bankruptcy appeals court on Wednesday scrapped billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Twin Star Technologies' winning bid to take over Videocon Industries Ltd on a plea by some creditors that the money offered imposed a steep Rs 62,000 crore haircut upon banks, the Times of India reported.

The crisis engulfing China Evergrande Group deepened, as the embattled property developer said it had been ordered to tear down dozens of buildings on an extravagant man-made island in southern China, the Wall Street Journal reported. At the same time, Evergrande released data showing its much-publicized financial stress had largely halted sales of new homes, depriving it of an important source of cash. Contracted sales dwindled to about 720 million yuan, the equivalent of just $113 million, between mid-October and year-end, the company’s figures showed.

A 10-minute walk from the Bank of England, on the eastern edge of the City of London, lies a gateway to a new shadow world of money. Here on Dukes Place is the office of Moorwand Ltd., one of a fast-growing breed of upstarts that bill themselves as alternatives to old-fashioned banks when moving money around the world. Each day in the U.K. alone, an estimated 1.4 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) courses through loosely regulated digital payments businesses like Moorwand, Bloomberg News reported.