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Most followed: Alliance Trust, easyJet, Flybe, International Airlines Group, Nasstar, Ryanair

Published: 05:41 07 Apr 2015 EDT

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Airlines are in focus this morning for wildly differing reasons.

Heavweight players IAG (LON:IAG) and EasyJet (LON:EZJ) have seen their share prices fall sharply after the long Easter weekend, as markets adjust to the share rise in oil futures yesterday.

Meanwhile, regional airline Flybe’s (LON:FLYB) turnaround plans have been given a lift by rises in capacity and passenger revenue.

The Exeter-based budget carrier, which is working through a three-year cost-cutting plan and route re-organisation, added 15% more seats in the three months to March and held load factor constant at around 70%.

Last week, the operator announced a hub deal that links Liverpool John Lennon Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport; Lennon himself would probably have approved of the connection.

In the “why are we not surprised” department, low-cost Ryanair (LON:RYA) has banned customers from bringing on booze to flights from Glasgow’s Prestwick airport to Ibiza.

The move comes after a bit of a punch-up on the route last year and another incident in 2013 when a flight had to be diverted to Beavaid-Tille airport in France; not that a dozen or so passengers were any the wiser as to where they were, according to reports.

“All cabin baggage will be searched at boarding gates,” Ryanair told customers who have booked flights on the route.
“Any alcohol purchased in airport shops or elsewhere must be packed in a suitable item of baggage, which will be tagged and placed in the aircraft hold free of charge,” it added.

On the subject of punch-ups, Lesley Knox, former chairman of Alliance Trust (LON:ATST), has waded into the dispute between the investment trust and activist hedge fund Elliott Advisors, which is agitating for three directors to be added to the Alliance board.

“I very much doubt that Elliott’s time horizon is a long one, and do not believe it is aligned with why I am a shareholder in Alliance Trust,” she said in a letter to The Sunday Telegraph.

She also cast doubts over the independence of the directors Elliott has put forward for election, suggesting that Elliott will put pressure on the directors to “exert undue influence”.

Alliance is not having all its own way in the war of words, however; former Alliance director Tim Ingram has challenged the trust to justify chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox’s remuneration more or less doubling over a five-year period to £1.34mln.

Over the same period, the trust has lost its place in the FTSE 100.

If your business in based in the Cloud, then presumably having a ticker symbol of NASA is pretty cool.

Step forward, AIM-listed computing specialist Nasstar (LON:NASA), which narrowed its full-year loss last year as group revenues soared 77% thanks to restructuring and acquisitions.

Sales from its three main operating businesses, e-know.net, Kamanchi and Nasstar UK all contributed to the rise, said chief executive Nigel Redwood, who described it as a transformational year.

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