Joanna Plucinska

Europe's major airlines are targeting smaller deals and tie-ups after facing regulatory push-back against full mergers, focusing on minority stakes to strengthen their position against rivals.

TUI wants to attract holidaymakers from China and the United States to its new hotels in Asia and is offering cheaper destinations in eastern Europe as budget-conscious Europeans spend less and book shorter vacations, its top executive said.

Europe's largest tour operator TUI could look to buy smaller, specialist travel firms in the coming years to expand its global brand, Chief Executive Sebastian Ebel told Reuters on Friday.

The boss of Europe's largest tour operator, TUI, said on Friday it would use partner airlines like Ryanair to carry passengers when it is facing strong demand, enabling it to remain conservative on its own airline schedule.

Air India [RIC:RIC:AIRID.UL] is holding off on exercising its outstanding options to buy additional Boeing jets until the planemaker has cleared its backlog, CEO Campbell Wilson told Reuters on Wednesday.

Ryanair is confident that Boeing will ramp up its production of 737 MAX jets to 38 per month this summer and will be allowed by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to then increase that to 42, the airline's CEO said on Wednesday.

Ryanair reported better than expected profits for the final three months of 2024 on Monday and Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said he was "cautiously optimistic" about fares for the coming summer on constrained capacity in Europe.

Ryanair expects Boeing to produce 38 of its 737 MAX planes per month by the end of the summer and possibly up to 42 by October, subject to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said on Monday.

EasyJet's shares dropped to their lowest level since October on Wednesday as the company flagged weaker revenue expectations for the second quarter, but the airline cut losses in the first quarter and kept its profit guidance for the year.

Germany's Lufthansa Group is set to resume flights to and from Tel Aviv in Israel from Feb. 1 and Wizz Air restarted its London to Tel Aviv route on Thursday, the companies said following a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.