Airport traffic soars, Amazon job cuts, and wanting the UK to do well

We took to the air in large numbers at Christmas, with the latest numbers showing more than 1.6 million passengers passed through Cork and Dublin Airports over the festive period. In Dublin, activity over the first Christmas free of Covid restrictions for three years almost reached levels reached in 2019, while Cork beat its 2019 total.

Barry O’Halloran has more on the DAA data, but also explores the recovery in aviation more fully in our long-read Agenda feature. He finds that while demand is set to expand this year, avoiding last year’s summer chaos must be a priority for all players in the sector.

Hopes are rising that Amazon’s 5,000-strong workforce in the Republic could avoid the worst of the ecommerce giant’s cost cuts. Ian Curran reports that the Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney has not received a collective redundancy notification from the company since it first signalled job losses in November. Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy has since confirmed that some 18,000 roles will be eliminated.

Dublin company Salmon Software paid out €2.65 million in dividends to its owner John Byrne before a majority stake in the business was sold early last year, writes Joe Brennan. The payment was made before the sale to private equity firm Melior was completed.

Stella Li of Chinese car maker BYD: ‘We don’t want to engage in a price war’

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Will consumers benefit from Aviva entering the Irish health insurance market?

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The world’s richest countries must invest in effective, cheap technologies to tackle climate change

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Q&A: What does Bankinter move to Irish market mean for me?

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Women employees of Virgin Media Ireland earn almost 22 per cent less on average than men who work for the telecoms and media company, according to its gender pay gap report for 2022. Laura Slattery has more on the story.

Reporting from the Consumer Electronics Show it Las Vegas, Ciara O’Brien has details of BMW’s plans for a car that could change colour according to your mood. This isn’t just a car; it’s a digital emotional experience, apparently.

Mark Paul is looking towards London this week, observing that the economies of the State and the UK have rarely seemed to be on such divergent paths. He argues this is no time for Irish smugness and that the Republic should want to see its neighbour do well.

And in his Economics column, John FitzGerald outlines what he sees as the value in an expert review of how the State handled the pandemic. He believes any such review should encompass a number of strands, including the public health response, the education system and economic management.

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