Ryanair boss says airline will dispute account of passenger who said they were partially sucked out of window – as it happened

Ryanair has said it will be “disputing” that any part of a passenger’s body was sucked outside when a window on one of its aircraft broke while in flight. US investigators are examining the incident which left Ljubisa Karović, 61, severely injured when the window beside him shattered on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany in July. Karović’s lawyer said the Serbian businessman was hauled back in after his head and right arm were sucked through the window due to the sudden depressurisation. However, Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said the airline would be “disputing” that account, telling reporters after the airline’s annual meeting in Dublin on Thursday that Karović was “certainly sucked towards the window, but he didn’t get out the window”. The European Central Bank raised interest rates by a quarter point, the second hike this year, seeking to tame an energy-driven rise in inflation triggered by the Iran war, as it warned that fuel prices could move higher. A relative lull in the conflict came to an end in recent weeks, and in recent days the US and Iran hit ⁠military, shipping and energy assets, sending oil ⁠back above $100 a barrel – now at $104.53 a barrel, but approached $106 a barrel earlier. Natural gas prices have also jumped today. The ECB responded by raising its policy rate to 2.50% from 2.25%. It acknowledged that even then inflation is expected to stay above the central bank’s 2% target through to 2028, in part ⁠because activity in the wider economy is more resilient than thought. The ECB decision and statement prompted traders to raise bets on further hikes, pricing in 60 basis points more of increases by the April 2027 meeting, up from around 51 bps before. As usual, ECB president Christine Lagarde stressed the ⁠bank does not pre-commit to any future moves. She told a press conference We have not debated at all any kind of future path. Markets do what they have to do and we do what we have to do - which is to provide price stability. Lagarde acknowledged ‌that gas prices could rise due to further supply disruptions or an unusually cold winter, in combination with low storage levels across much of Europe. We believe inflation will be longer lasting than we had anticipated. Aberdeen economist Felix Feather said: More important than the move itself is that the ECB has used this ‌meeting to acknowledge a stronger economy and a more persistent inflation outlook than it expected just a few months ago. Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Bye! – JK HSBC’s first female finance chief is to step down next year, amid a string of high-profile departures at the Asia-focused lender. Chief ‌financial officer Pam Kaur plans to step down in 2027, the bank said on Thursday. Under chief executive Georges Elhedery, HSBC has undergone a radical restructuring in the last two years. HSBC said its board has started to look for a replacement for Kaur, and will consider “both internal and external ⁠candidates”. In December, HSBC unexpectedly announced that interim chair Brendan Nelson would stay in the role permanently after a seven-month search for a successor to Mark Tucker. Since her appointment in October 2024, Kaur had been widely regarded as the top aide to Elhedery as he led a global overhaul to split the bank into East and West regional divisions, exited some markets and slashed costs to streamline operations. Edward ⁠Firth, analyst at KBW in London, told Reuters: Pam Kaur’s exit is a bit of a surprise but she has done a good job since being appointed in supporting Elhedery’s restructuring and selling off superfluous parts of the bank, the results of which can be seen in the share price. The HSBC share price dropped 1.5% on Thursday but is 28% ahead so far this year. The wider FTSE 100 index has slid 55 points, or 0.5%, to 10,614. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is now heading towards $106 a barrel, as fighting in the Middle East escalates. It is now at $105.66 a barrel, up $4.41 or 4.3% on the day. British gas prices continue to climb, and are trading at the highest levels since December 2022. The front-month contract briefly hit 207.2 pence per therm and is now 206.81 per therm, up 4.6% on the day. European gas prices have also jumped. The benchmark Dutch front-month contract rose 4.1% to €82.53 per megawatt hour. Yemen’s Houthi rebels are making a concerted drive to take full control of the country’s Red Sea coast, claiming control of the key port of Mocha, in the most serious wave of fighting with the Saudi-backed government in years. Seizure of the coast would be a strategic disaster for Saudi Arabia and the US, taking Iran and its proxies closer to full control of two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula: the Bab al-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea and the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Mark Wall, Deutsche Bank’s chief European economist, said about the European Central Bank’s interest rate hike, the second this year: The inflation risks may be rising and a further hike in December may be more likely than not, but the ECB still needs to tread carefully. The economy has been resilient over the last six months, but rapidly rising gas prices mean the negative supply shock is building. It will eventually hurt growth. The question is how much and when. Here is our full Ryanair story: The ECB is now expecting headline inflation to average 3% this year, 2.5% next year and 2.1% in 2028. The next two years have been revised higher from its June estimates. The central bank is forecasting economic growth of 0.9% for 2026, 1.4% for 2027 and 1.5% for 2028. The next two years have been revised up “mainly reflecting the greater than expected resilience of the euro area economy”. Referring to an energy shock, the ECB said: The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth. The European Central Bank has raised interest rates for the second time this year, as widely expected, at it tries to bring inflation under control. Inflation has been driven higher by soaring energy costs from the US-Israeli war on Iran. Surging oil and natural prices pushed inflation to 3.3% across the eurozone last mont, far exceeding the ECB’s 2% target. Oil and gas prices have jumped again this week amid an escalation of fighting in the Middle East, with Brent crude now approaching $104 a barrel. Christine Lagarde, the ECB’s president, will explain the central bank’s thinking at a press conference in 25 minutes. A statement said: The governing council today decided to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points. The conflict in the Middle East continues to generate inflation pressures, and inflation is set to remain well above target for an extended period. Today’s decision underscores the governing council’s commitment to setting monetary policy to ensure that inflation stabilises at its 2% target in the medium term. Accordingly, interest rates on the deposit facility, the main refinancing operations and the marginal lending facility will be increased to 2.5%, 2.65% and 2.9% respectively, with effect from 16 September. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said that the airline will be “disputing” that any part of a passenger’s body was sucked out of a window midflight. Ljubisa Karović, 61, suffered neck and shoulder injuries after the window broke during the flight from the Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen near Munich, Germany, on 10 July. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the US is investigating the incident during the flight. Speaking to reporters after the Ryanair annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday, O’Leary said the passenger was “certainly sucked towards the window, but he didn’t get out the window”. Asked if the passenger was partially out of the window, he said: He wasn’t partially out the window. No, no, no. Part of his face didn’t get out the window. We don’t think any part of his body got out the window, but he was certainly sucked in very dramatic circumstances towards the window. O’Leary said Karović was “belted into the seat” and added: We will be certainly at the end of the process disputing that he or any part of his anatomy will bend out the window. The airline chief acknowledged the man suffered injuries and added: We’re not trying to downplay it. Look, that incident is being investigated by the NTSB, and we have to await the outcome of the NTSB report. Asked if Ryanair had done any checks or fixes as a result of the incident, he said: There’s nothing we can do at the moment. We are a participant in the investigation with Boeing, with the NTSB, with GE on the engine side. Most of the focus is what happened to the engine. Why was it not self-contained within the cowl of the engine? The Ryanair boss said the company was in touch with the passenger’s lawyer and acknowledged he was entitled to “some compensation” but said he did not believe there was any basis for “any class action” or a payout of “millions and millions”. Karović, a Serbian businessman, previously told The Guardian he was “still strapped in” with his seatbelt. His wife Svetlana said they were “eternally grateful” to one passenger who she believes is Albanian for his part in the rescue. He did all he could to bring him in and then tried to block the window, first with a bag that was immediately sucked out and then with a suitcase, which worked. UK, German and French government borrowing costs have surged today, as energy prices jumped, fuelling investor fears over rising inflation. The moves come ahead of the European Central bank’s latest policy announcement, with a quarter point interest rate hike widely expected. There is also the fallout from the US Treasury’s plan to buy back $6bn in government debt, announced on Wednesday. The yield, or interest rate, on the 10-year UK government bond, known as gilt, hit 5.295%, the highest since August 2007 and up 2 basis points on ⁠the day. Two-year gilt yields, which are more sensitive to inflation fears, rose 2bps to 4.742%, the highest since November 2023 while five-year yields were the highest since September 2023 at 4.828%. The yield on Germany’s 30-year government bond, known as Bund, rose 2.5bps to 5.08%, the highest since December 2003. the 10-year yield hit 3.45%, the highest since April 2011. France’s 10-year government bond yield was the highest since October 2008 at 4.344%, up 1 basis point. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, said the US would buy back $6bn worth of government debt – called US treasuries – in an effort to alleviate a selloff in the US bond market that has put pressure on interest rates. But the size of the deal failed to appease bond buyers and the yield on 10-year Treasuries rose to a three-year high. Oil prices continue to climb, and are above $102 a barrel now after the US and Iran stepped up their attacks on ships on Wednesday. Brent crude touched $102.17 a barrel and is now trading at $102.09, up 88 cents or 0.87%. British gas prices jumped above 200p per therm, the highest since December 2022. The front-month contract is now 1.1% higher at 199.89p per therm, after touching 200.5p per therm earlier. Continental European gas prices also rose. The benchmark for the EU, the Dutch wholesale gas price, breached €80 again, as on Wednesday, which was the first time it had gone above that level since January 2023. The front-month contract is trading 1.1% higher at €80.21 per megawatt hour. There were reports that Ukrainian drones hit gas processing facilities in Russia’s Yamal region. On Wednesday, an industrial facility caught fire in Novy Urgengov in northern Russia following a drone attack, regional governor Dmitry Artyukhov said on Wednesday, according to Reuters – the first such attack on the country’s natural gas hinterland. EU gas stores are only 67% full, well below the five-year average of 84%. Analysts at ING said: This leaves the market vulnerable as we head closer towards the upcoming heating season. Mark Crouch, market analyst at the trading platform etoro, said Primark’s recovery is still some way off, and welcomed the home delivery announcement. The sharp drop at the open is the market saying Primark’s turnaround is still a story, not a number. Like-for-like sales at Primark, expected down 3% in the fourth quarter after a 2.2% drop in the third, tell investors the recovery they had started to price in is not here yet. Summer price cuts and a sharper UK offer have not turned the existing store base. New shops in the US can still lift the headline. They cannot, on their own, justify the multiple a standalone Primark will need. Europe remains the problem, and that is half the estate. Home delivery in the UK is the right call and closes a long running gap. It will not rescue this Christmas, and the market has treated it accordingly. The longer term case still seems intact for patient investors: a decent balance sheet, a 2027 split that should surface value, and a brand that still works when the offer is right. This morning is a reminder that the City is no longer paying up for the plan. It wants proof on the shop floor, and it did not get it. The FTSE 100 index has edged nearly 10 points lower to 10,660, while Germany’s Dax also dipped 0.1%. Other European indices pushed cautiously higher, with the French Dax up 0.2%, Italy’s FTSE MiB 0.55% higher and Spain’s Ibex climbing 0.4%. Associated British Foods is leading losses on the FTSE 100, down almost 10%, despite announcing that Primark will start offering home delivery in the future. Total sales are falling at the budget clothing chain and were barely positive in the UK and Ireland. Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdownm saud: Associated British Foods’ (ABF) fourth-quarter results have left investors hungry for more as its crown jewel, Primark, is expected to deliver a like-for-like sales decline of 3%. Growth in the UK and Ireland was barely positive, while sales in Continental Europe fell by more than 4% as consumer confidence remains particularly weak. Primark also announced plans to introduce home delivery across Great Britain. While this will likely help boost the top line, running an efficient and profitable delivery and returns service is no easy task, and with Primark’s low price point, doing it profitably is even more difficult. In the meantime, new store openings are the key lever being pulled to drive the top line higher, contributing 5% growth and helping total Primark sales to rise by 2% over the period. Work on the planned demerger of Primark is progressing smoothly and is now expected to be completed in December 2027. ABF’s sugar business is also struggling. It was a mixed performance from the rest of ABF’s food businesses, with growth across grocery and ingredients largely offset by continued declines in the sugar and agriculture divisions. Performance in the sugar division continues to be held back by lower yields following a period of unfavourably hot and dry weather, as well as weaker average selling prices in Europe. All in, ABF reiterated its rather vague full-year guidance for group-level underlying operating profits to fall below last year’s level of £1.7bn. But market forecasts are sitting around 13% lower at £1.5bn, which feels more realistic to us. Today’s update has done little to hint that a sharp improvement in fortunes is around the corner for ABF, and profitability in the Sugar division looks set to worsen still in 2027, offsetting progress in other parts of the business. Oil prices are heading higher again, with Brent crude rising above $101 a barrel. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose as high as $101.94 a barrel this morning, the highest level since 23 July after tensions in the Middle East escalated. Donald Trump said on Wednesday he expected the war with Iran to end after the US midterm elections in November, and threatened again to attack Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified site, ⁠programme. The two sides launched ⁠their biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the start of the six-month-old war – Iran said it had attacked 10 ships near the strait of Hormuz (where daily traffic has dwindled to single digits) on Wednesday after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary reiterated the airline’s recent warning that if oil prices stay high, there will be a significant uplift in air fares next year. Here is our full story on Primark starting to offer home delivery in Britain “in the future” – it’s a bit of a moment. Independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said: We flagged last Friday that there has been plenty of speculation about tough trading in the John Lewis department store business and we assumed that overall first-half sales would have been something like 3% down, with ‘big ticket’ products taking a beating, but on an ex-VAT basis the fall was 4% and the biggest fall (-4.8%) was in fashion. And, despite good work on margin and cost control, that sort of top-line drop hit the bottom line at John Lewis, with the usual H1 operating loss up from £53m to £83m this year (we expected £80m). The hope might have been that Waitrose could help to make up the JL shortfall, but the business has been investing heavily in store refurbishments etc and although there was 2.8% sales growth at Waitrose in H1, there was a bit of margin pressure and the heatwave brought higher supply chain costs, so Waitrose operating profits in H1 were slightly down, from £110m to £103m (we expected £105m). Usually the H1 investment programme would be expected to pay off in the seasonally more important H2, but JLP are ‘cautious’ about the outlook, given the uncertainties about the autumn budget etc. In other retail news, losses at the owner of John Lewis and Waitrose widened by more than 40% in the first half of the year as it struggled with higher costs and with shoppers feeling less confident about their money. The John Lewis Partnership, which operates 36 department stores and more than 300 Waitrose supermarkets, said its pre-tax loss for the six months to 1 August climbed to £124m, compared with £88m in the same period in 2025. Jason Tarry, the chair, said the drop reflected the company’s “continued investment in our transformation, a more challenging trading environment and the increased costs of doing business”. Some of the higher costs included greater national insurance contributions, as well as “managing operations through the heatwaves”, JLP said. The group is in the midst of a turnaround plan, in which 16 department stores and at least 20 Waitrose outlets have been closed and thousands of staff jobs cut. The drop in profit comes after Peter Ruis, head of the department store arm, said last month he would step down after less than three years in the role. He has been replaced by Will Kernan, former boss of the River Island fashion chain. In March the company felt confident enough to pay its 69,000 workers, whom it calls partners, a bonus – of 2% of salary – for the first time in four years, following a 6% rise in its underlying profit. Staff shared a bonus pot of £35m, worth about one week’s extra pay each. However, the retailer has since struggled with weak consumer spending this summer, as successive heatwaves deterred shoppers from heading to the high street, instead using online specialists, and the rising cost of living has hit spending on big-ticket items such as sofas and beds. First-half sales at Waitrose grew 4% to £4.3bn, while at department stores sales dropped 2% to £2bn. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the global economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Flight chaos in the UK is expected to clear today, after more than 2,000 flights arriving in or departing the UK have been cancelled since an air traffic control system issue on Tuesday. Flight schedules are expected to return to normal, with no flights cancelled today, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium. The chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (Nats), Martin Rolfe, has faced calls to resign. The government has given him a week to report back on the reasons for the technical failure. The problem was fixed on Tuesday but further flights were cancelled or delayed on Wednesday, a total of 2,145 over two days. Cirium said 399 flights were cancelled on Wednesday alone. British Airways was the worst affected airline, with 88 of its 507 flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday affected. The airline said it was “incredibly sorry” to its customers and that the issue had been “entirely out of our control”. Michael O’Leary, the outspoken boss of budget airline Ryanair, called Rolfe’s position “untenable” and he is likely to voice more criticism at Ryanair’s annual meeting at its headquarters close to Dublin airport later on Thursday. Primark will start offering home delivery in Great Britain in the future, according to its parent Associated British Foods, which plans to spin the budget retailer off ⁠next year. While Primark offers a Click + ⁠Collect service, it had been resisting a move into home delivery, ⁠arguing it did not make economic sense because of its low price points. But AB Foods said today: Primark’s ‌digital maturity, ‌including the success of Click + Collect, and online ‌market developments, mean there is now the opportunity for profitable growth through the home delivery channel. Primark has acquired a highly-automated warehouse in Sheffield, ‌northern England. AB Foods said work on the demerger of Primark from its food businesses is advancing well and is expected to be completed in December 2027. Crude oil prices have dipped but Brent crude remains above $100 a barrel after fighting in the Middle East escalated. it is currently trading at $100.42, down 79 cents or 0.8%. Shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz has dwindled to single digits, fuelling concerns over oil supply. Asian stock markets are a sea of red, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbling 1.4% while Japan’s Nikkei was flat and China’s CSI 300 index lost 0.4%. Yields on 10-year US Treasury bonds held steady at 4.8406% after rising to their highest levels in three years on Wednesday, when the Treasury Department announced a $6bn buyback of longer-dated bonds that disappointed some investors. The European Central Bank is widely expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point at lunchtime, to bring inflation under control. The Agenda 1.15pm BST: European Central Bank interest rate decision 1.30pm BST: US Producer prices for August 1.45pm BST: ECB press conference 3pm BST: US Home sales for August