British Airways and Qatar Airways are expanding their joint business, providing enhanced access to popular destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australasia. The news follows BA’s resumption of its daily service to Doha from London Gatwick earlier in December, operated with a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. The two airlines will jointly operate up to six daily flights between London and Doha this winter - five from London Heathrow and one from London Gatwick, BA’s chief executive Sean Doyle says. “The proposed expansion of the joint business will be great news for customers, offering them access to more destinations across the world with seamless connections. We know customers are always looking for more options to connect onto popular holiday hotspots such as the Maldives and Seychelles, and this expansion will allow them to do just that,” Doyle adds. The airlines expect to receive regulatory approvals of their expanded joint business proposition in the first half of 2022.

France will introduce new travel restrictions on visitors from the UK this weekend in a bid to slow the spread of Covid-19's Omicron variant. The French government has announced that from 00:00 local time on 18 December, travellers between France and the UK must have a "compelling reason" to make their journey and this does not include tourism or non-essential business trips. French citizens and their immediate families will be permitted to enter France but will face new testing and quarantine requirements. Travellers from the UK, regardless of vaccination status, must show a negative Covid-19 test result – either PCR or antigen – taken less than 24h prior to departure. They must register with authorities an address in France, where they will be required to self-isolate on arrival. Self-isolation measures will be lifted after 48h on presentation of a new negative Covid-19 test result. France has also advised travellers to postpone trips to the country from the UK. The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) has described the move as a "hammer blow to the winter travel industry". France is a popular skiing destination for UK tourists. "The winter sports and school travel markets are particularly exposed, and the government must now bring forward a support package if we are not to see company failures and job losses," states ABTA chief executive Mark Tanzer, adding that the travel and tourism sector "has had little chance to generate income since early 2020 and is now faced with another wave of cancellations". The UK on 15 December reported 78,610 daily cases of Covid-19 – its highest level since the pandemic began. On the same day, the country removed all 11 countries from its travel red list after determining that the variant was now spreading rapidly within the UK. It had added a number of countries in southern Africa to the red list on 26 November after the Omicron variant was detected in South Africa. Italy and Greece have tightened travel restrictions in recent days due to Omicron, and reports in the Irish press suggest that new measures could also be recommended in Ireland imminently.

The European Commission says the now-collapsed takeover of Air Europa by IAG-unit Iberia would not have met competition regulations designed to ensure affordable connectivity. IAG announced on 16 December that it was terminating the deal that was originally agreed in November 2019, a process that will see it provide €75 million ($85 million) in severance fees to Air Europa owner Globalia. The European Commission launched a phase II investigation into the merger in June, which concluded it would have negatively affected competition on some domestic, short- and long-haul routes within, to and from Spain. Writing following the official cessation of the deal, executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, says that although IAG offered remedies, "taking into account the results of the market test, the remedies submitted did not fully address our competition concerns". "Competitive transport markets offer connectivity with a wide offering of affordable flights. This should be preserved for when demand returns fully and travelling picks up once again," she continues. Analysis shows that the deal would have given IAG a dominant position in much of the Spanish domestic and transatlantic Latin American market. However, IAG hinted that it is still interested in taking a stake in the Spanish carrier. In its statement to stock markets issued 16 December, IAG says it and Globalia will "evaluate, before the end of January 2022, alternative structures that may be of interest to both companies and offer significant benefits for their shareholders, customers and employees".