This podcast isn’t personal advice. If you’re not sure what’s right for you, seek advice. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on personal circumstances.
This podcast isn’t personal advice. If you’re not sure what’s right for you, seek advice. Investments rise and fall in value, so investors could make a loss.
Full episode transcript
Susannah Streeter: Hello and welcome to Switch Your Money On from Hargreaves Lansdown. I’m Susannah Streeter – Head of Money and Markets.
Sarah Coles: And I’m Sarah Coles – Head of Personal Finance.
Susannah Streeter: And we’re recording this on a typical summer’s day, when leaving the house does require several layers and an umbrella, just in case.
Sarah Coles: Yes – all this rain is one reason why our enthusiasm for travel remains so strong.
Susannah Streeter: So, in this podcast, we thought we’d combine a bit of both – a look at what the outcome of the general election may mean for our money, investments, and pensions – and we’re going to turn our attention to the Travel sector as well. We’ll look at what the upcoming holiday season appears to be fairing like. Now, you would think that events like the Olympics would prompt a rush of travel to France, but that’s not necessarily the case. There have been warnings that international travellers who aren’t sports fans are steering clear – and there’s a bit of turbulence around for other reasons too. We’ll also look at how trends are shaping up for the future, in an episode we’re calling, ‘The Direction of Travel.’
Sarah Coles: Yes – we’ll examine developments within some of the best-known listed travel companies with Senior Equity Analyst, Matt Britzman. And veteran Travel Journalist, Simon Calder, is with us to talk about how this summer season is shaping up – and what lies further ahead for the industry.
So, Simon – are you expecting less travel disruption in the coming months than we’ve seen over the past couple of summers?
Simon Calder: I am really sorry to say that disruption is exactly what you can expect for the rest of the summer. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in terms of the number of people who are, very unfortunately, finding their flights cancelled – very often at last minute notice – and, furthermore, you really need to know your rights when it all goes wrong and what the airline that cancels your flight has to do for you.
Susannah Streeter: Thank you, Simon – we look forward to finding out more about your insights later in the podcast. We’ll be hearing from Emma Wall as well – our Head of Investment Analysis and Research – for a fund manager perspective.
But, first of all, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last six or seven weeks, you can’t have missed what’s been a pretty seismic political event – the General Election, of course.
Sarah Coles: Yes – Labour gained over 400 seats – and that’s an estimated 35% of the vote, but it was the lowest share for a governing party in history.
Susannah Streeter: First in the Chancellor’s inbox will be a thorough look at the nation’s balance sheet. The party set some firm fiscal rules that day-to-day costs are met by revenues and debt must be falling as a share of the economy by the fifth year of the forecast.
A budget isn’t expected until the autumn – however, planned revenue-raisers like VAT on private school fees and an increase of the windfall tax on oil and gas extraction are expected on the agenda in her first fiscal event.
Sarah Coles: The Chancellor will also be responsible for creating the conditions for productivity rises and growth – in line with the ambition for the UK to secure the highest growth in the G7.
Susannah Streeter: It was interesting to see the market reaction – given the poll forecast, the result caused few ripples.
The UK stock market lifted little on the open. The pound was largely unchanged against the dollar as the exit polls came in and lifted only very slightly as the overall result became clear.
The lack of movement was unsurprising, given the overall results had already been priced in.
The priority will be keeping the bond markets calm in the aftermath of the election and not overdoing spending pledges.
However, there could be some tinkering with the borrowing rules as some point in the future – to distinguish between day-to-day spending and investment to propel long-term growth. This could potentially loosen the purse strings further ahead.
Sarah Coles: But, so far, this doesn’t seem to have perturbed the debt markets, with bond investors appearing to be more sensitive to interest rate speculation than to the investment plans of an incoming government.
This result came hot on the heels of a steady rise for the UK market – retaking its crown as Europe’s most valuable for the first time in nearly two years last month.
Susannah Streeter: With political turmoil in France now taking centre stage, the UK looks finally set to enter into a period of financial stability. This has the potential to spark renewed investor interest in the UK.
So, an awful lot to absorb – whether it’s in terms of investments, tax, pensions. There’s certainly going to be a lot to preoccupy us for many months to come!
I already feel a need of a holiday – thankfully, I have one coming up, but I really feel as though I need a period of calm and could certainly do without any delays or cancellations – because we do seem to have had more than our fair share of disruption and cancellations, when it comes to travel, over the past few summers.
Sarah Coles: It hasn’t been plain sailing for the holiday industry so far this year. One big story this summer has been another travel company going bust – this time, German’s third largest tour operator, FTI. This has affected Youtravel in the UK, which has cancelled a number of holidays and is used by the likes of loveholidays.
Susannah Streeter: Plus, there have been strikes planned for the summer peak, including at Gatwick Airport – which, if the dispute isn’t resolved, could have a nasty impact on those jetting away at the start of the summer.
There had been high hopes that the snarl-ups which prompted long security queues – and caused travellers to miss flights last year – would be solved, but that looks like it will be wishful thinking.
New scanners were meant to be in place by 1st June, eliminating the need for the liquid security check, and allowing much larger quantities of liquids to be taken through. But, although they were being installed at checkpoints at the UK’s main airports, the work was not fast enough to meet the June deadline. So, it’s now been pushed back – even for those few airlines that do now have the new equipment.
Sarah Coles: Another major issue affecting airlines, in particular, has been the ongoing impact of issues at Boeing.
An incident in January saw a piece of one of its jets blow out during a flight. Nobody was hurt, but it raised safety questions. So, a combination of work done within Boeing and oversight from the regulator had seen a dramatic slowdown in production, which could affect capacity next year. To complicate matters further, it’s been warned it could lose its status as a party and a probe into the incident after it broke rules about what it could say to the media.
Susannah Streeter: Ryanair confirmed earlier this year that this means that planes that had been ordered hadn’t arrived – so Michael O’Leary said an order of 57 Boeing 737 Max 8-200s were due by March, but it’s thought only 40-45 would arrive in time for the summer.
So, this means airlines putting fewer flights on – which, in the early part of the year, led to higher prices. However, a more recent Ryanair announcement has revealed that, this year, travellers have been less likely to take price rises on the chin. In the face of higher prices, demand softened – so prices have retreated back to being modestly flat compared to the peak of last summer.
Sarah Coles: Of course, travel trends aren’t just about what’s happening in the coming months because there are a number of longer-term trends in play too.
Increasingly, travellers are having to think about the impact of climate change. There are financial implications – like climate levies – including in the EU from January 2025. So, German carrier, Lufthansa, has said it’s adding fees of between £1 and £60 for flights from EU countries – as well as Britain, Norway, and Switzerland.
There are also more practical considerations, including the heatwave in Europe, which led some countries to issue warnings to tourists to take extra precautions in extreme heat.
In addition to the heat risks is the increased danger from fires. Extreme wildfires have doubled in the past 20 years – including the historic fires in 2019 and 2020 in Australia.
Susannah Streeter: There are now signs that more tourists are booking trips outside of traditional peak seasons. Booking and transaction data indicates that there has been an increase in demand during the spring – and in September to October – as holidaymakers attempt to avoid heatwaves and those intense crowds of tourists.
It’s not surprising booking trends are changing, given the higher risks of other extreme weather, including flooding and storms.
So, climate change has also had an impact on the safety of air travel – and there is some evidence that climate change is leading to more extreme turbulence as well.
For these reasons and more, some travellers are considering their impact on the planet when they travel – and so we’ve seen the rise of train travel. It is, of course, almost always better than the plane when it comes to emissions.
There is an awful lot of change happening in the industry right now – so this is a very good time to go back to Simon Calder.
Simon – great to have you on the podcast. You’ve got an amazing backdrop – where are you right now?
Simon Calder: My left foot is in Italy and my right foot – and the rest of me – is in Switzerland. That’s because I’m right on the border. I’ve been hiking all morning on this amazing Scala De Paradiso – this stairway to heaven that lifts you from the Italian-Swiss border town of Chiasso up to the southern-most point in Switzerland.
Very interestingly – in terms of money – I made sure I had my morning coffee on the Italian side, where you can get a very good Café Latte for €1.60.
Susannah Streeter: You talk about ‘The Stairway to Heaven’ there – that’s what so many travellers want when they book their holiday. They want that piece of heaven – lying on a sun lounger – no disruptions at all. But you hinted a bit earlier that you think they might be in for a pretty rocky summer again – why is that?
Simon Calder: Very unfortunately, you’ve got this ‘Perfect storm’ – ‘cause storms are a very large part of it.
We seem to have just about enough aircraft – even though there’s also some Airbus planes which are out of circulation – and maybe that’s nudging up fares more than people would want. But the main problem I have seen – pretty much since the start of the summer peak – so back in June – is air traffic control problems in Europe – many of them fuelled by terrible storms.
Sarah Coles: So, that’s not particularly cheery news when it comes to things like disruption, but what about things like prices and route availability? Have those improved?
Simon Calder: Going back to March – I talked at length with probably the most powerful person in European Aviation – that’s Michael O’Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair. He told me, ‘Right – prices going up 5% or 10% – and that is as a result of the shortage that we have of aircraft’ – and they’re about 17 Boeing 737s short of what they committed to when they started selling their programme. That’s because of the Boeing problems. That hasn’t actually materialised – and there’s one metric I use for how well or badly fares are going – and that is the number of seat sales you get, particularly in peak season. Start of July, I’m seeing really quite a lot of 48 hours – ‘Go fill your boots – we’ve got cheap flights in July and August’ – and I’m thinking, ‘Shouldn’t really have cheap flights in July and August.’
I think we’re now reaching the point where, during COVID, we couldn’t travel anywhere – so huge pent-up demand for going away – and the airlines met that. So, the past couple of years, they’ve been filling their boots – making prodigious profits.
I detect a couple of things. Maybe we have now made up for lost sunshine – and lost adventures – but we’re also getting a bit fed up with the prices that they are charging. Ultimately, it’s all about supply and demand – and we are at the point of saying, ‘Actually, we’ve had enough now, thanks.’ And, particularly – if you see all the disruption – people might well be thinking, ‘I’m gonna have a holiday at home, thanks.’
Susannah Streeter: It’s interesting as well about demand for flights to Paris. You’d think the Olympics would be great business for travel firms, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Simon Calder: Absolutely right. Everybody thinks that the Olympics is gonna be the best ‘Get-rich- quick’ scheme ever – and that applies whether you’re Air France, or a hotelier in Paris. But now, we are seeing the great unravelling.
I talked to the tourism officials in Paris and said, ‘Historically, I’ve been watching the Olympics. You expect you’re gonna do brilliantly well, and then it turns out to be rubbish.’ And they basically said, ‘We know it’s gonna be rubbish!’
Last July, we had 91% occupancy in our hotels – during the Olympics, we’ll be lucky if we get 70% of our rooms filled – and that spells bargains. I’m already seeing prices for city-centre budget hotels coming down below €100. I expect to see a lot more – and Air France has just had to put out a statement saying, ‘Yeah – it’s a bit embarrassing – we’re gonna be €150m/€200m short of where we thought we would be’ – and that’s entirely because people are avoiding Paris, as they always do.
Sarah Coles: In terms of longer-term trends – so looking beyond this year and looking further ahead – d’you see the growth of international travel via things like trains as opposed to flying as climate change moves up people’s agenda?
Simon Calder: I’d love to – but, unfortunately, it’s all about competition.
Certainly – in terms of aviation – one reason the UK has absolutely the biggest and the best aviation industry in Europe is because we have – for decades – had lots of competition. Yes – it’s gone a bit – as they say in the travel industry – ‘Tango uniform’ since Brexit – but, generally, aviation has benefitted hugely from competition.
The railways – it’s just pathetic. We’ve gotta start by freeing up the Channel Tunnel – ‘cause, at the moment, Eurostar – if you’re booking close-in, you cannot get a seat on a London-Paris – or Brussels or Amsterdam – train for under £235 – is the normal fare. That’s preposterous – and the fact that I am sometimes flying from London to Paris – I feel really quite sick about doing that – ‘cause, environmentally, it’s rubbish – but, if I can get a flight for a quarter of the Eurostar fare, that’s what I’m gonna do. You need competition through that tunnel – and then, suddenly, you will get the great situation that you’ve got in Spain, at the moment – where between Madrid and Barcelona, you’ve got four different train companies – and some of them are offering fantastically good standards in roomier class – others are just saying, ‘We’ll take you there for €10. It’s great.
Spain is the way to go. France are doing very well. Germany – having lots of problems with its trains, but it’s mostly getting out of the UK by train which is the tricky thing.
Sarah Coles: Obviously, tourists are gonna be big part of the scene in the future – but can you look ahead and tell us, ‘What are the trends to watch?’ What d’you think people should be looking out for?
Simon Calder: There is going to be quite a lot of infilling of places which are currently not very high up on the tourism map. I’m thinking Albania – possibly Algeria – which have infants’ tourist industries. They have a vast amount of interest to the tourist – and, the more that prices go up in other destinations, the more people will be thinking, ‘Okay, I’d like something a bit different – and I would like to pay a bit less’ – and, certainly, Albania is gonna be the summer star for years to come.
I think we may slightly move back from all the long-haul travel we’ve been doing – partly because of environmental consideration – partly because, if the new government has any sense, they will do things with air passenger duty. The tax on flying from a UK airport – in order to effectively reflect the harm that is being done by your flight – and the fact that, if you want to go to Egypt in Premium Economy, you’ll have to pay approximately £200 in air passenger duty – and it will be the same if you are flying to Los Angeles in First Class. So, I dare say that the cost of long-haul flying may increase – and we’ll be tempted to spend time closer to home – which would be great.
And, my goodness – the UK tourism industry needs a boost – so probably the best thing you can do is do a little bit of Europe – little bit of the UK – not forgetting beautiful Ireland, of course.
Susannah Streeter: Thank you, Simon – be really interesting to see how all of these trends shape up in the future.
Simon Calder: Thank you very much.
Susannah Streeter: It is going to be very interesting to see how all of these trends shape up in the coming months and years – and I know you’re gonna have a front seat to it all.
Of course, it’s going to have an impact on listed companies in the sector as well – so this feels like a good time to bring in Matt Britzman.
Matt – you’re gonna start with a company not everyone associates with holidays – but, of course, we’ve been talking briefly about train travel as well – and one that can benefit, potentially, from this trend is Trainline.
Matt Britzman: Yes – Trainline is a digital solution to what’s a legacy and largely physical industry. If you haven’t used the website or app, it’s pretty intuitive. Lines up the best routes from train and coach operators – and you can book and manage through the app.
It doesn’t actually run the trains, itself – which means all the benefits that a software company usually has – like strong gross margins and cash conversion.
Now, recent sentiment has been hurt by Labour’s plans to tackle the UK rail system, but these fears have perhaps been overdone.
Labour don’t plan to launch a digital product – and the renationalisation of train operators shouldn’t derail Trainline’s ability to sell tickets. That said, regulatory challenges remain a key risk.
Sarah Coles: So, with the COVID recovery now in the rearview mirror, where d’you see growth coming from for Trainline?
Matt Britzman: Great question. Trainline is already a market leader – so it needs to drive growth from two key angles. The first is a trend that’s already in play – the number of train tickets booked online is growing – but, at just 47% of total bookings, there’s a big opportunity to capture more of existing demand – and that’s likely to come in time. The penetration of e-tickets should continue to improve as we all move more of our lives to digital platforms – but, for Trainline, specifically, getting better rates – bundling journeys across operators with a ‘SplitSave’ feature – and improving alerts are all ways to boost engagement.
The second growth area lies overseas. Net ticket sales in Europe pushed past the £1bn mark last year – with Spain and Italy seeing combined growth of 43%.
The international market’s four times larger than the home UK market – and, although Trainline only has a 10% share of total sales in Europe, it’s already the largest third-party booking platform. In the short-term, the expansion will eat into cash, but long-term value creation could be significant. Execution risk is a key thing to watch for here; investment needs to drive growth, or the company will likely be affected.
Susannah Streeter: So, it is a holiday company after all. Matt – who have you lined up next?
Matt Britzman: You’d be hard-pressed to find a business model more aligned with holiday trends than an airline. I’m going to talk about easyJet – but, for full transparency, I should note that an independent Non-Executive Director of Hargreaves Lansdown Plc is also an independent Non-Executive Director of easyJet Plc.
So, easyJet has been through a turbulent time. Post-COVID travel demand has been a welcome tailwind, but recent comments on the near-term outlook for bookings and revenue pursuits were a little soft. The other spanner in the works was news that there’s a shakeup at the top too, with the CEO of seven years leaving the captain’s seat. The good news is that a replacement has already been found in the form of the current CFO.
Sarah Coles: Markets weren’t too happy with these comments, were they, Matt? Do you agree with the sentiment?
Matt Britzman: Yeah – you’re spot on. Investors – just like travellers – don’t tend to like unexpected announcements – whether that’s a slightly weaker outlook or a change at the top. The demand angle is something to monitor, but not something that necessarily diverts the company from its goals.
People need their holidays – and, while living costs are still a thorn in the consumer’s side, conditions are improving. EasyJet also has some specific growth angles that perhaps haven’t been fully reflected in the current valuation. The first is its strength in selling extras to existing flyers. These are the bits that we all hate to pay for – think baggage, legroom and food. Seeing the total costs go up as you add those bits is never a pretty sight for us consumers, but, for easyJet, it’s a growing and highly lucrative area.
The second stems from its choice of flying routes. Unlike some of its low-cost peers, easyJet focuses on western European routes from major airports. It costs more to run those routes, but means they can capture demand that peers simply don’t have access to.
Analysts expect the dividend to improve over the coming year, and easyJet certainly has the firepower to deliver that – but, as always, no dividend is ever guaranteed.
Susannah Streeter: Thank you, Matt. We’re moving a little left-field now – who d’you have down for your final name?
Matt Britzman: Yes – quite right – the final name is Rolls Royce Holdings – and you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m about to talk about the great British car manufacturer. But the Rolls Royce you may see on the streets of London is produced by a subsidiary of BMW. Rolls Royce Holdings – which I’m about to talk about – and trades on the FTSE 100 – actually makes aeroplane engines.
Rolls focuses on engines used for longer-haul flights, but its customers are broad – ranging from Airbus to the RAF. A large portion of its revenue comes from ongoing contracts to service those engines. So, the key thing for Rolls is that planes remain in the air – and demand for overseas holidays and travel is essential.
The business has been on an impressive flight path over the past year or so. Engine-flying hours have recovered, returning to 2019 levels earlier in the year – and, according to analysts, growth is expected to continue.
Sarah Coles: So, with performance being tied to flying hours, has Rolls managed to overcome the challenges it faced over the pandemic?
Matt Britzman: That’s a great question – and the short answer is, ‘Yes.’ Disposals and a huge restructuring effort have lightened the load of recent financial scars. Free cash is back flowing through the business and that’s allowed the group to make good headway in lowering debt – and analysts are expecting the dividend to return this year. Of course, there are no guarantees.
The other attraction is the high barriers to entry in the Defence and Aerospace sectors. There aren’t many large-scale competitors, and the multi-billion pound order book gives a great deal of visibility over future revenue.
Mid-term targets look achievable, with scope for some positive surprises – but the group needs to grow into its above-average valuation, which does add pressure to keep delivering.
Susannah Streeter: Thank you, Matt – you’ve certainly tracked down a pretty varied group of companies all affected by travel trends.
And, of course, the Travel sector has an impact on funds too – so, with that in mind, let’s bring in Emma Wall – our Head of Investment Research and Analysis – who’s been discussing the sector in detail with Olivia Micklem of Artemis.
Emma Wall: Hello, Olivia.
Olivia Micklem: Morning, Emma.
Emma Wall: We’re here today to talk about travel and leisure. Post-pandemic, this was a sector that absolutely boomed. How do volumes today compare to the post-pandemic freedom holiday bonanza?
Olivia Micklem: We certainly saw what was termed at the time, ‘The revenge travel era’ – straight after the lockdown started to ease. Since then, I think things have shifted a little. We saw inflation creep into the system in the US in a big way – and that really affected people’s ability to spend on some of these more discretionary items.
So, as inflation crept up – and the cost of your everyday grocery and other discretionary items got more expensive – we certainly saw some of that revenge travel start to normalise. That being said, there’s still some pent-up demand creeping back in.
Cruise lines, for example, are starting to see volumes recover there. You tend to book your trip on a cruise much further in advance than you would another holiday – and that’s taken a little bit of time to recover.
We’re still on a generally upward trajectory – and there’s still more room for it to recover.
Emma Wall: As you say, the price of things in the supermarket – how much has this impacted this sector? – ‘cause travel and leisure, of course, is 100% discretionary spend. It’s the sort of thing you can cut when the pennies start to pinch.
Olivia Micklem: Yes – I think where we’ve seen it a lot is things like restaurant activity.
To take a step back, I think the US consumer – in aggregate – is in generally reasonable health. There’s been an awful lot of wage growth over time – employment has been fairly full. That being said, there has been a difference between the high and the low-income consumer in terms of the health of them right now. So, at the high end, you’ve had the benefit of strong stock prices – strong housing prices – has really helped support that demographic to keep spending on both discretionary and essential items.
For the lower-end consumer, it’s been a little bit trickier – and I think the price of your everyday grocery basket has really eaten into their ability to spend on other areas. Things like restaurant traffic trends – particularly for the quick-service restaurants – the McDonald’s and Burger Kings of this world – have really noted that traffic trends have been slowing more recently. Now, in response, what they’re starting to talk about is putting more promotional items onto their menu to try and lure people back in.
Emma Wall: Let’s talk then about stocks – about companies – ‘cause it definitely sounds like there’s some sub-trends there. What have you got in the portfolio that plays out that higher-end consumer and cruises?
Olivia Micklem: On the high-end consumer side, there are two restaurant concepts we are invested in at the moment – one is called ‘Carver Group’ and one is called ‘Sweetgreen.’ Both of them really tap into a middle to high-income consumer who’s looking for fresher, on-site, prepared, healthier options – very much tapping into a longer-term trend of healthier eating habits in the US – and trends towards health and wellness and fresh foods.
The Carver Group operate a series of restaurants that focus on Mediterranean menus – and what we’ve seen is we’ve got this huge opportunity for them to take what’s been a very successful concept thus far – and continue to grow into what is a very large market in the US.
In addition, they’ve got very, very efficient store footprints – so the actual ‘four-wall’ profit margins of these businesses are very high – and, similar to one very successful concept we’ve seen work in the past – which was ‘Chipotle,’ which was the Mexican concept. So, Carver’s really following in their footsteps in terms of operating very efficient boxes – tapping into a consumer who’s looking for a very specific menu in that Mediterranean space.
The other area we’ve looked at is a company called ‘Sweetgreen.’ So this – again, health and wellness-driven – is a salad-bar concept – and there’s been a huge demand for that concept over time.
One of the areas they’re really looking into is automation. So, making these bespoke salads, people can have all sorts of different menu items and adapt the recipe – that tends to lead to a bit of a slowdown in how many people you can serve, any given part of the day. So, they’ve been looking at really interesting areas like robotics – a robotic salad maker is the concept that they are testing in certain markets to prove the efficiency there.
So, those are two areas where we see something that taps into a trend in terms of higher-income spending and health and wellness – but, with two self-made company drivers behind it in terms of the profitability.
On the travel side, the area we’ve looked at that’s also been lagging is the group travel area. So, Hyatt Hotels is one that’s more exposed international travel and group travel – both of which are taken a little longer to recover – so, when we compare them with their peers like Hilton in the large-cap space, Hyatt have a little bit more opportunity to see the recovery continuing to benefit them over time.
One thing we like about the Hyatt model as well – which is very company-specific – is they’re following in the footsteps again of the larger-cap peers to shift from an asset-heavy model of owning the hotels, themself, to an asset-light model – where they licence the buildings – someone else builds it for them – puts that capital to work – and they come in and run it as the Hyatt chain.
So, one of the things we like there is a nice structural tailwind with some of the travel recovery, with some nice idiosyncratic drivers as the business as they transform their own operations over time.
Emma Wall: Thank you, Olivia.
Olivia Micklem: Thanks, Emma.
Sarah Coles: That was Emma Wall talking to Olivia Micklem of Artemis – and please bear in mind that these are the views of a fund manager and are not individual stock recommendations.
Susannah Streeter: You’re listening to Switch Your Money On from Hargreaves Lansdown – and, before we go, it is time for a quick fact of the week. This one, we’re going to everyone’s least favourite place on the plane – the toilet!
So, Sarah – there’s a feature in the bathrooms of planes that feels like a bit of a blast from the past, but are actually required by law – and that’s ashtrays. But why d’you think people need them?
Sarah Coles: [Laughs]
Susannah Streeter: Is it because it’s part of a 1950s act that was never actually revoked? Is it because there’s still places in the world where you can actually smoke in the toilet? Or is it just in case someone has a really sneaky cigarette – so they’re not tempted to put a lit cigarette in the bin?
Sarah Coles: [Laughs] Well, none of those sound likely. So, I’m gonna go with the one which sounds least ridiculous, which is that there are places in the world where you could still smoke on a plane?
Susannah Streeter: No – it is actually the final option. Just in case anyone breaks the rules – to stop them putting their cigarette in the bin – and starting a fire – which could be catastrophic, of course – they allow these ashtrays still to be in the toilets – and these fires have actually happened. Back in 2017, a British man was actually jailed for almost 10 years for smoking on a flight to Egypt and starting a fire – although this wasn’t the only reason. He was also pretty abusive to other passengers.
Sarah Coles: I have to admit – I only went on a handful of flights before smoking was banned and it does seem odd now that these things ever happened.
Susannah Streeter: I know – it is really hard to imagine smoking was actually allowed on planes until the late 1980s. The world of travel just keeps changing!
That’s all from us for now. Before we go, we do need to remind you that this was recorded on 8th July 2024 and all information was correct at the time of recording.
Sarah Coles: Nothing in this podcast is personal advice – you should seek advice if you’re not sure what’s right for you.
Investments and any income they produce can rise and fall in value, so you could get back less than you invest – and past performance is not a guide to the future.
Susannah Streeter: Yes – this is not advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment. No view is given on the present or future value or price of any investment, and investors should form their own view on any proposed investment.
Sarah Coles: And this hasn’t been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and is considered a marketing communication.
Susannah Streeter: Non-independent research is not subject to FCA rules prohibiting dealing ahead of research. However, HL has put controls in place (including dealing restrictions, physical and information barriers) to manage potential conflicts of interest presented by such dealing.
Sarah Coles: You can see our full non-independent research disclosure on our website for more information. So, all that’s left is for me to thank our guests: Simon, Olivia, Matt, Emma, and our Producer, Elizabeth Hotson.
Susannah Streeter: Thank you very much for listening. We’ll be back again soon – goodbye!