cost iag $103 million. the airline launched a budget airline called level last year, offering fares from barcelona to several us cities for $137 one way. this transatlantic market, the most lucrative in the world, saw budget carriers boost capacity on these routes by 68% last summer. with me is daniel roeska, transport analyst at bernstein research. thank you forjoining us. let us start on what you can expect. generally the picture looks very rosy for iag. absolutely. what we're seeing is that the trading is exceptionally good. signal factors are up. you mentioned the mike mack consolidation. there is out of the uk have temporarily gone up for iag. —— ——monarch. uk have temporarily gone up for iag. -- --monarch. seeing airlines like barataria and -- --monarch. seeing airlines like ba rataria and monarch -- --monarch. seeing airlines like barataria and monarch disappear, it does not take long. in the third quarter we will see the market quarter we will see the market quarter being observed... it take

what is it that iag is doing so right right now? three elements, overall regulatory framework which is common, economic geography coverage of the region they are in and a flexibility of business model and what iag is doing very well at at the moment is that ability of business model across the whole spectrum of markets. do you mean from cheap right up to the luxury end of the market? leisure to business end of the market and also reflecting the demand in north—west europe and south—west europe as well. there are some gaps in that, they have some gaps they could fill in terms of the market? looking at central europe and eastern europe, the coverage connecting through london and madrid is quite weak. so i think that is something that was indicated about their interests, for insta nce indicated about their interests, for instance in nicky, to fill the gaps. when we talk about iag we often think about british airways because it is the big lump within this body of companies but obviously, their main hub remains heathrow, discussion a

what it has meant for the larger airlines, iag, etc, is that hopefully they can push prices up. it is all about price increases at an operating level, a difficult operating environment, try to decrease costs. it is difficult when you are dealing with large airports like heathrow. that is a good point. it is the nature of these things. there is a picture of the ceo, as say, salivating over the you say, salivating over the colla pse you say, salivating over the collapse of some of these smaller airlines. it is a reality, they have said it about consolidating in the industry, this point also about needing to push. he mentioned taking on heathrow at the moment. needing to push. he mentioned taking on heathrow at the momentm needing to push. he mentioned taking on heathrow at the moment. it is really important. british airways itself ‘ the landing really important. british airways itself ‘the landing slots itself has 51% of the landing slots at airport. heathrow at heathrow airport. heathrow airport is 65% more expensive than all other major european hubs. it is an incredibly tou

iag is the parent group of british airways, aer lingus and iberia. group profits are up 12.5%, despite suffering that huge it collapse last summer. suffering that huge it collapse last summer. we spoke earlier to the chief executive about rises in air fa res across chief executive about rises in air fares across the industry. we expect or unit revenue to improve. prices came down in 2017. unit revenue is domination of the yield, average fares, but also how many seats we fill an aircraft and we saw in 2017 filling more seats on the aircraft and that was driving the overall performance of the business. it is not on the back of increasing prices, it is on the back of prices that were reduced in 2017. sticking with the theme of airlines, a revolution could be coming to airport security. the government has awarded eight projects a total of £1.8 million to develop innovative technology to bolster airport security and speed up the screening process. let's find out what they are. simon calder is here to tell us what the new technology could mean for flyers.

i'll be speaking to an aviation expert to find out what this means for iag — that's ba, aer lingus, vueling and iberia — and what it means for your next holiday.

. >>> shares in iag are down despite the company forecasting higher profits this year following 19% growth in 2017 the parent of british airways reported 3 billion euros in operating profit before exceptional items. it's set to return half a billion euros to shareholders this year, planning a share buyback and hiking its full-year dividend >>> telecom italia trading higher after reporting it could drop a proposed venture with canal. the decision will be discussed early next month under the terms, telecom italia would have paid for content provided by canal. the italian telecoms company has also hired credit suisse and goldman sachs to work on the spinoff of its legacy network business >>> italian bond yields ahead of the election next sunday, that yield for the two-year is at 0.682. the ten-year is at 2.153 that 30-year is at 3.1610. some people selling off those bonds right now. >>> we are just over a week away from the italian general election head to our website for a simple guide to the march 4th vote which could help rebalance the political environment in the country or send shockwave

iag said no additional capital return will be paid this year. join us now is keith barr. -- joining us now is keith barr. you have been in the business for 12 -- percent of months. you happy with the business is going? keith: i am happy. a strong set of results for last year. 2.7% globally. the number of hotel rooms we opened around the world is up 4% , our best results since 2009. underlying profits up 8%. able to increase our dividend so really strong set of results. today we announced a number of initiatives to build on those results, to take existing brands into new markets. continue to invest in technology and retain our commitment. guy: china is growing pretty quickly. how quickly will grow in the future? keith: i was fortunate to live in shanghai and that market goes from strength to strength as it moves from a manufacturing market and focusing on resources and consumption. we're opening up a significant number of hotels. you are really seeing that market stabilize, grow and strengthen. we are encouraged about the long-term by you of the

finally iag is down nearly 3%. parent company is british airways. revenue is the lowest analyst estimate on the company. they are seeing profit to increase this year, but they did miss the lowest estimates. that stock is down under pressure this morning. manus: thank you very much. had wti above three dollars a barrel. it's trading 1.7% higher than the whole week. they have beginning to dissipate because egypt's foreign minister is saying oil is $70 a barrel is a fair price for crude and his country has no plans to join local production cuts. he spoke exclusively to bloomberg. >> i think the current level of prices is good for us. us, i have inout egypt a lot of people operating thisnd gas companies and level of price is encouraging them to invest and when we need investments in order to grow the production and going the production would help us to decrease the importation of crude, which is good for production. manus: there you go. another joins the fray in terms of what the fair value of oil prices is. joining me now to find fair value in the ener

they're getting numbers for iag. statement also. they are announcing a share buyback of 500 million euros during 2018. they are expecting improved operating profit for 2019. looking at the backward looking numbers, full-year adjusted operating profit, 3.02 billion euros. numberquarter revenue coming in a little bit shy of the estimate. interesting to see this coming through on the 2018 and 2019 period. interesting to see the share buyback coming through. let's get to the german gdp number. we are expecting an update on the german economy this morning. let's see if we can get that for you. the german gdp number for the fourth quarter, imports and exports number here. , 2.3%-quarter gdp group year on year. fourth-quarter adjusted number, 2.9% year on year. rising .6% quarter on quarter. on the germanate growth story. let's get to the market and where we are performing. the asian equities session getting a boost from somewhere, not necessarily from the u.s. equity session. we saw you was equities rising and then falling. it is a patter

iag which owns british airways, iberia, they give u5a british airways, iberia, they give us a sense of how airlines are doing. there is a lot to contend with for airlines. la5t doing. there is a lot to contend with for airlines. last year some went bu5t with for airlines. last year some went bust and there are cheaper rivals between the uk and the us, the transatlantic route. there have been technical problems at ba. and also, check—in chao5 been technical problems at ba. and also, check—in chaos and uncertainty around brexit. what does it mean? let's speak to the boss, willie wal5h. he's chief executive of international airlines group that own5 ba and iberia. good morning. good morning. we will talk first of all about these re5ults. talk first of all about these results. a good set of figures. you made that clear in your statement to be you noted prices for tickets are going up. people have to pay more. is that down to falling competition? berlin has gone under and you can charge more? it is a good set of re5ults. charge more? it is a good set of results. we did not say prices are

david: whether it is iag or other airlines coming try to find interest in american and it did not work out, but are you looking other investments with airlines? akbar: we are constantly looking at other investments, but we do not always put our chips on the table, so you have to wait to hear when we announce our new investments. david: fair enough, i hope it will come back and tell us about the new investments. airways baker, qatar ceo. -- brianan bilski is belski of bmo capital markets still with us. do you feel like they are properly valued right now? valuationsi think from a price-earnings basis could go down from here. i think if you buy cyclical stocks into sell them at low pe's. we are looking at the return on investment capital, assets, as it accelerates, that is when you want to buy the industrials. given the diversified nature of the multinational companies, we hear about global synchronized growth, the difference between buying industrials now versus five years ago or 10 years ago, 10 years ago we bought these companies because of global growth. we are buying them now because

saying iage, you are can get better returns somewhere else by buying things in the developing world. or invest domestically. tom: we're going to show this in both hours. a lot of weeding -- reading over the weekend on this. here's the great robert samuelson. why should we worry about escalating debt? the answer in a word, prudence. we don't know how much federal debt is too much. once investors and speculators and erik nielsen lose confidence, the consequences can be devastating. the prudent thing to do is never get close to the line. we aren't being prudent. are we anywhere near a quadratic move where we get yields back on a real basis to where they were in the jfk and lbj 1960's? erik: i think that is a long way away. the direction is coming. they are still very low. for me, it is a question of normalization. until that comes, this irresponsibility, i think you are on your way. it is still a long way out. tom: erik nielsen with us. this is a theme we're going to touch upon. it really brings me back to the idea of deficit, something paul krugman talked about, when there was weak gdp