Thursday newspaper round-up: Rolls-Royce, British Airways, HSBC
The US will bar Chinese passenger carriers from flying to the United States starting on 16 June as it pressures Beijing to allow US air carriers to resume flights, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday. The move, announced by the Department of Transportation, penalizes China after Beijing failed to comply with an existing agreement on flights between the world’s two largest economies. Relations between the two countries have also soured in recent months amid escalating tensions surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. – Guardian
Rolls-Royce has announced the locations of its first 3,000 redundancies in the UK, as the jet-engine manufacturer makes deep cuts to its civil aerospace business in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The company last month announced it would cut 9,000 jobs across its global operations because of expectations of lower demand for air travel using its engines for years to come. – Guardian
HSBC's top executive in Asia has been condemned by democracy campaigners after backing a new Hong Kong security law that hands sweeping powers to the Communist regime in Beijing. Asisa-Pacific boss Peter Wong broke years of political neutrality at the London-listed bank by signing a petition in favour of the change - despite warnings from protesters and human rights groups that it will spell the end of the city's independence and trigger a brutal crackdown on dissent. – Telegraph
British Airways could be stripped of prized landing slots at Heathrow airport because it is cutting staff while still taking advantage of the taxpayer-backed furlough scheme, a minister has suggested. Officials will review whether they can intervene in slot allocations at Europe’s busiest airport as BA plans to slash 12,000 jobs, Kelly Tolhurst, the aviation minister, told MPs. Warnings of state intervention drew a sharp rebuke from the airline’s boss Alex Cruz. Addressing staff, he said: “Every slot lost will lead to jobs in BA being permanently lost.” – Telegraph
The Bank of England will today name 60 businesses, including several of the country’s 20 biggest, that have tapped the state for £19 billion of coronavirus corporate financing, a cheap loan scheme for non-financial companies in need of cash. The list will raise questions about whether multinationals, many of which use legitimate tax avoidance schemes to pad their profits, should be banned or subjected to tougher anti-avoidance conditions. – The Times