The Elder Scrolls 6 – this is still the only screenshot there’s ever been (Bethesda)
The Friday letters page is unimpressed by Shigeru Miyamoto’s recent comments, as a reader looks forward to not hearing any more about Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Anniversary release There’s been some talk of Bethesda and their… failings lately but nobody seems to be talking about The Elder Scrolls 6. It’s been so long since Skyrim I don’t even know if younger gamers even know what it is anymore. And we still don’t have anything close to a release date.
I had hoped that after Starfield came out on PS5 that Bethesda would switch track and announce something, but we already know it won’t be the big game during the Xbox summer showcase. It might get a smaller slot, but I know I wouldn’t bet on that right now.
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I’m still holding out that there’s hope it could be released next year but I think the safer bet would be 2028 or later. The 20th anniversary of Skyrim is in 2031 and there’s a genuine chance its sequel might not be out until then. Considering how little Bethesda has done in that time that is incredible to me, especially as Fallout 5 won’t be out until after that! Bosley
What is it good for? I agree it seems like ages since anyone was talking about Call Of Duty. The most obvious way back for these sort of things is some sort of nostalgia grab but they’ve already remade the Modern Warfare series once and the last Second World War one was a flop. So that means the only real answer is remaking Black Ops, but that series is so all over the place it doesn’t really seem like each game has much to do with each other, so you might as well just make another sequel.
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People will always want to play soldiers, but I don’t know if they’ll always want to play Call Of Duty, now it’s kind of ruined all its major sublines. The best idea would be to make up a new one, but I don’t know what you’d base it around.
War doesn’t seem like so much fun right now, given what’s going on in the world, so this really has hit at the worst time for Activision and I’m not surprised it’s sci-fi games that are more popular at the moment. McReady
Piratical sequel I’m so looking forward to not having to hear about Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced anymore. In fact, it’s a shame it wasn’t a shadow drop, so we could’ve put a lid on it right now. The graphics look better but at the same time there’s nothing that’s blowing me away or that looks any different than the bullshots they had when it first came out.
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If the combat and stealth is better that’s great but I’m not sure why they didn’t just make a sequel. They had two for Assassin’s Creed 2 and I would’ve thought a brand new pirate game would’ve been a lot more exciting than a remake of one that was good in its time but not really anything anyone would play nowadays. Tony T.
Remaking history I can’t say I remember anything about a white ZX Spectrum back in the day but then I was very young then and I’m not sure how rumours spread in those days, via the mags I guess?
44 years of the Speccy certainly makes me feel old but at the same time I’m glad it’s being remembered still. It won’t be long till it can think about its 50th anniversary and that’s crazy to me. That’s almost as long as the games industry as a whole, so it’s kind of nice to have known it since the beginning.
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I am interested in the new replica, which isn’t quite as expensive as I expected, but I do worry how playable these games are going to be nowadays. I can’t help thinking that most of them would be better off as a remake, to improve things like controls and difficulty. It’d still be 2D and on an indie budget but I’m not sure there’s really the call for it. The Bishop
15 minute reward Replying go Woz G, about the play a PC game reward points. You don’t need a PC, create a GeForce Now account – it’s free – then link your Xbox account on the GeForce Now site.
All you need do then, is play one of the available Game Pass game on the GeForce Now service, such as Ori And The Will Of The Wisps for 15 minutes to get your reward points.
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It even works if you do this with the Edge browser on your Xbox console. Been using this method for quite a while to get the PC daily reward points. Aidax89
Keeping the British end up RE: the letter on Thursday, about the lack of government promotion for GTA specifically, and the UK gaming industry as a whole; just wanted to offer an alternative view.
Firstly, of all the games ever made, GTA doesn’t need additional publicity. In fact, even though it’s a behemoth of a franchise, GTA likes to give off an anti-establishment vibe so wouldn’t welcome that sort of endorsement.
Secondly, the government (irrespective of political leaning) has given support to the industry, but not necessarily in an in your face way. For instance, just last week it announced a £30 million package for UK developers.
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Furthermore, there’s tax breaks aimed specifically at the industry via the VGEC (Video Game Expenditure Credit) and historically governments of different colours have offered similar incentives to the gaming and film sectors, which bring in billions of pounds annually (although obviously not all the developers are UK owned).
And finally, there are a huge amount of UK developers at work today! Yeah, it may not be obvious that some titles are homemade due to the worldwide market, digital distribution, and the cross-border collaboration we now have, but the UK is the third biggest country for game development (by revenue) and the sixth largest market. TheThruthSoul (PSN ID)
Free advertising Nocturnal is free on Steam until Sunday, 26th April at 3pm. I have had this on my wishlist for a while but never thought it would be free.
I nearly bought it two or three weeks ago! I wonder if they are having it be free to promote Nocturnal 2. Andrew J.
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The death of cinema I found Miyamoto’s comments on the Mario movie critical backlash quite amusing, but I’m surprised he would come out with something as arrogant as ‘helping to revitalise the film industry’ and hope it was something lost in translation.
I haven’t seen the Galaxy film but have seen the first one and sadly agree with the critics. Found it near unwatchable and closer to the death of cinema than its revitalisation – and I’m a big Nintendo fan. If you’d told me in 2017, playing Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and Super Mario Odessey, games that seem to fundamentally understand the appeal of exploring virtual worlds in a creative way, that 10 years later Nintendo would jump on cultural brain rot bandwagon… well disappointed wouldn’t cover it.
We are getting a lot of video game movies now, and I’m just hoping that following the success of Mario and Minecraft producers haven’t given up trying to craft anything that resembles an actual film. Though the trailers for the latest Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter suggest they have. Do audiences for these things really just want to clap like seals waiting for fish at ‘recognisable things’? Even Fallout stumbles into that trap. Heaven forbid an actual artist crafts a great story around these things that might not please everyone, when did we become so culturally conservative?
Anyway, we’ve got a proven movie maker in Alex Garland on Elden Ring. Someone who seems to understand games too, using his experience playing Resident Evil to craft 28 Days Later. So hopefully something good will come from that and we’ll get a proper, self-contained movie. Marc
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GC: Yeah, that whole bit from Miyamoto was pretty awful; we were very disappointed. We also admire Alex Garland, but we’d say that if you truly understood games you wouldn’t want to make a movie adaptation in the first place, which we argued was Nintendo’s approach with the Mario movies – which don’t seem to be intended as traditional films at all.
Inbox also-rans Just been on to pre-order Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynched. There are two choices, the cheaper on has PS5 Pro support, yet the expensive one doesn’t. Is that right or has someone messed up? David
GC: The Deluxe Edition doesn’t say PS5 Pro Enhanced on the PlayStation Store, but that must be a mistake.
Dammit, now I’m addicted to Vampire Crawlers! It already took me months to get over Vampire Survivors so I guess I’ll at least be saving a lot on new releases for now. Statler
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The police had ‘damning evidence’ against the 26-year-old
A man who supplied drugs in different counties has been jailed. Artur Shabani, 26, was at his home in High Street, Eye, when Cambridgeshire Police searched his property on March 2.
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Officers had received information about cocaine being supplied to South Lincolnshire and Rutland, and an operation was being run from Eye. At his home, officers found nine mobile phones in Shabani’s bedroom, as well as a small amount of cocaine and drug dealing paraphernalia elsewhere in the property.
Mobile phone analysis revealed bulk messages related to selling cocaine. The investigation also uncovered CCTV evidence that showed Shabani topping up one of the dealer phones, which was an unregistered pay-as-you-go device.
On Tuesday (April 21), Shabani was jailed to 36 months in prison after appearing at Cambridge Crown Court. He admitted to being concerned in the supply of cocaine.
DC Jenny Hargreaves said: “The evidence against Shabani was damning, giving him little option but to plead guilty. I’m pleased he has been brought to justice, and this county lines operation selling cocaine in Rutland and South Lincolnshire disrupted.
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“County lines can often be linked to other offences such as criminal exploitation and the substances they deal trap people in addiction. We will continue our efforts to identify those involved in supplying drugs and bring them before the courts.”
In a message on X via the official supporters’ club,, external Millwall said the “serious misuse of a registered club badge” created a “false and damaging image of the club”.
Millwall said the council confirmed any remaining copies of the booklet they have will be destroyed and no more copies will be made and distributed.
“The club is still considering its legal position on the matter and are unable to comment further,” it said.
The Paul Canoville Foundation said it was aware of the image, which was widely shared on social media, but stressed it had no involvement in the material’s content, saying it was “not produced by, commissioned by, or approved” by the foundation or Canoville.
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“Our involvement in the associated programme was limited solely to Paul’s personal appearance; meeting students and sharing his lived experience,” the foundation’s chief executive officer Raphael Frascogna said in a statement., external
“At no stage were we shown, consulted on, or asked to approve the content of the booklet, including any illustrations within it.”
Frascogna added the illustration does depict a real incident Canoville experienced when playing for Chelsea reserves against Millwall reserves in the 1980s, “in which he was subjected to serious racial abuse by a number of individuals wearing Ku Klux Klan-style white hoods”.
Former winger Canoville, now 64, played for Chelsea for five years from 1981 and scored 15 goals in 103 games, later retiring because of a knee injury aged 25 after a short spell at Reading.
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Millwall are third in the Championship this season, level on points with second-placed Ipswich, who are in the automatic promotion places.
An artist’s impression of the planet Epsilon Indi Ab, with water clouds floating over its ammonia-dominated atmosphere (Picture: E. C. Matthews, MPIA / T. Müller, HdA/Cover Media)
Astronomers have found a Jupiter-like planet several light years away which probably smells of urine.
Epsilon Indi Ab has an ammonia atmosphere with clouds of water floating above the surface – and ammonia and water are the two primary components of urine.
The pungent planet may not be top of the list for any colonisation plans by Elon Musk, but it has intrigued scientists studying it with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Elisabeth Matthews, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, is the lead author of a new study.
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She said: ‘JWST is finally allowing us to study solar-system analogue planets in detail. If we were aliens, several light years away, and looking back at the Sun, JWST is the first telescope that would allow us to study Jupiter in detail.
‘For studying Earth in detail, we would need much more advanced telescopes, though.’
The team studied Epsilon Indi Ab using Webb’s mid-infrared instrument.
They found it is around 7.6 times the mass of Jupiter but a similar size and orbits its star at a much greater distance than most exoplanets studied so far, giving it a relatively low temperature of between –70C and +20C.
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The discovery of the clouds of water were unexpected and not typical of many existing models of exoplanet atmospheres, as they are complex to simulate.
A digital image creation of Jupiter. Epsilon Indi Ab is the same size but far heavier (Picture: Getty Images)
James Mang of the University of Texas at Austin said: ‘It’s a great problem to have, and it speaks to the immense progress we’re making thanks to JWST.
‘What once seemed impossible to detect is now within reach, allowing us to probe the structure of these atmospheres, including the presence of clouds.
‘This reveals new layers of complexity that our models are now beginning to capture, and opens the door to even more detailed characterisation of these cold, distant worlds.’
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NASA’s planned Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, expected to launch later this decade, may be able to detect such reflective clouds more directly.
A 51-year-old man died during a Cathay Pacific flight from Manchester to Hong Kong on Friday morning – this is a breaking story
A 51-year-old man has died during a Cathay Pacific flight from Manchester to Hong Kong.
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The passenger lost consciousness during flight CX216, which departed Manchester Airport at 11.04am HKT on Thursday and landed at Hong Kong International Airport at 6.53am on Friday (11.53pm BST on Thursday). Hong Kong police said they received a report at around 6.15am local time on Friday that a passenger had collapsed on board the flight, according to the Hong Kong Free Press.
An autopsy is currently underway to determine the cause of death, the outlet reports.
In a statement to the South China Morning Post, a spokesperson for Hong Kong’s flag carrier said that “the crew and a doctor on board had provided immediate first aid to the victim”. The spokesperson added that an ambulance was called and paramedics boarded the plane upon landing.
It comes just days after doubts were raised over Jimmy Bullard’s attendance, following an explosive row during filming with Adam Thomas.
Although Jimmy has now confirmed he will be appearing on tonight’s (April 24) ITV show, when viewers will vote for their I’m a Celeb ‘ultimate legend’, sadly, Beverley Callard will not be there.
The Coronation Street favourite who was diagnosed with breast cancer in February issued an update to fans on her TikTok account yesterday (April 23).
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Why is Beverley Callard not attending I’m a Celebrity final tonight?
In the caption alongside a video message, she shared: “A last minute change of plans…Absolutely gutted but I know it’s for the best. Resting up and getting well is more important at the moment.”
Beverley, who currently lives in Dublin, went on to explain: “Yesterday I should have flown over to England to get ready for the I’m a Celeb final which is tomorrow at 7.30pm.
“I was so excited and looking forward to it, and on medical advice I can’t go.
“So I’m absolutely gutted, I was dying to see them all, and it would have been brilliant, but I can’t go.”
Health professionals have told Beverley that attending the I’m a Celebrity South Africa final would be “too long a day” as she recovers from surgery.
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She continued: “Flying there and you know, very late night… so here I am.”
However, the soap star will still be featuring in the live ITV final this evening and reuniting with her fellow campmates via Zoom, to “chat to everyone”.
Beverley added: “I’ve got to make the best of a bad job but I am resting, I am doing as I’m told, thanks to everybody.”
The actress was advised by medics to leave camp in the last week of the ITV reality show.
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Beverley told the other celebrities she “didn’t feel well” after having “a bit of a funny turn”.
As she tearfully said her goodbyes, the 69-year-old said she was “absolutely gutted and wanted to finish” her time on the all-star show, and that she “wanted to prove that older women could do it”.
Since announcing her diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer, Beverley has documented her treatment on social media and has recently undergone surgery to remove the cancer.
Who is in the final of I’m a Celebrity South Africa 2026?
The four celebrities who have made it to Friday night’s final are Olympian Sir Mo Farah, former football manager Harry Redknapp, actor and DJ Craig Charles, and actor Adam Thomas.
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Scarlett Moffatt just missed out and said she was “gutted” to become the latest campmate to be evicted during Thursday’s episode.
The Gogglebox star learnt she would be leaving the ITV programme after she came last in a trial, telling hosts Ant and Dec: “I felt like I was so close. I was the last girl standing.”
The challenge saw the celebrities have to count coloured balls as they rolled down a tube in front of them while they were showered with maggots, cockroaches, crickets and mealworms.
The five contestants were then asked how many blue balls there had been and were told that whoever’s estimate was the furthest from the correct figure would be evicted.
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Thursday night’s instalment also saw the celebrities take part in the Cyclone challenge, which saw them have to clamber along a water slide to reach stars while being pelted with huge balls and sprayed with high-pressure hoses.
The group won the task, which resulted in them all receiving phone messages from their loved ones at home.
They also enjoyed a breakfast of 10 eggs between them after successfully catching them from a large “chicken” roosting in a tree above their camp.
The final of I’m a Celebrity South Africa will be shown from 7.30pm tonight on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player.
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Let us know which celebrity campmate you will be voting for to win, in the comments below.
Four months after filming in September, Callard was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.
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In a new video posted on Thursday (23 April), the star said she “should have flown to England to get ready for the I’m A Celeb final” but “on medical advice, I can’t go, I am absolutely gutted.”
She added: “I was dying to see them all and it would have been brilliant. I can’t go and yesterday, the flights were booked and everything but no, they said, it is basically too long a day with flying there and then a very late night, so here I am.”
Can we ever really understand Chernobyl? As a researcher in visual culture, I find myself returning to this question again and again as I examine films, TV shows, documentaries, visual novels and artworks.
We know that the explosion occurred on April 26 1986 at 1:23am due to a safety test gone wrong, and that the radioactive contamination spread across the exclusion zone and far beyond, reaching other parts of Europe. Beyond these facts, however, things get shaky. Although the official death toll was, according to the World Health Organization’s 2005 report, less than 50, the real number is considered to be much higher, with thousands affected by the long-term consequences of exposure.
Radioactive contamination is what made this technological disaster so extraordinary. While many people may not be interested in decay chains or wavelengths, popular culture renders radioactive pollution immediately legible.
At the same time, these representations often operate in the space between historical fact and dramatisation. Although many can be criticised for exaggerating an already fantastical disaster, that dramatisation is also part of what keeps audiences engaged and ensures that Chernobyl remains alive in our cultural awareness.
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Here are five of my favourite pop culture depictions of the Chernobyl disaster, that I believe give a pretty good glimpse of what the disaster entailed.
1. Chernobyl (2019)
This series is one of the best ways to understand or be introduced to Chernobyl. Over the course of five episodes, HBO’s drama series brought viewers through the social, political and bureaucratic aspects of the disaster.
The trailer for Chernobyl.
Following the scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris), as well as the story of firefighter’s wife Lyudmilla Ignatenko (Jessie Buckley), the series does a great job at narrating the disaster in compelling ways. It is visually well constructed with attention to every minor detail.
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The series finds ingenious ways to visualise invisible radiation, while scientists’ struggle to force the truth into the open is heart-wrenching enough to hold the viewer through all five episodes.
2. Chernobylite (2021)
The horror indie video game Chernobylite allows players to wander freely around Chernobyl’s exclusion zone – one of the most radioactively contaminated areas on Earth.
With time and climate change, the structures and buildings within the zone are at increasing risk of disappearing from both wildfires or age that leaves buildings crumbling. In an effort to preserve the zone, the creators of Chernobylite began to 3D scan it. Left with a virtual map, they decided to turn their project into a video game.
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The trailer for Chernobylite.
In Chernobylite, players can roam freely and uncover the mystery of the zone. Although embellished with green glowing crystals and monsters, the game does offer a setting that allows you to walk around and experience the zone while scientists tell you information about the disaster.
This game is a wonderful way to experience the zone at a distance. It is photo-realistic and allows the players to really locate some of the famous landmarks of the zone (such as the Ferris wheel or the monument for the firefighters).
3. Chernobyl Abyss (2021)
This Russian disaster film follows fictional firefighter, Alexey Karpushin (Danila Kozlovsky) through some of the challenges in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.
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The trailer for Chernobyl Abyss.
To save his son from radiation poisoning, Karpushin agrees to become a “liquidator” in exchange for having him sent to a care facility in Switzerland. Around 600,000 military personnel were drafted as liquidators – sent to high-radiation zones (often wearing inadequate protection) to clear radioactive debris and manage contaminated waste.
While it’s not a perfect film, it gives a good impression of the emotional and individual toll of the disaster.
4. The Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015)
Amid the tragic and often action-driven representations of Chernobyl, this documentary feels hopeful rather than bleak. It portrays life in the exclusion zone (some people have returned to live on their generational land) in all its complexity.
More importantly, it’s a reminder that while the zone may be reduced to a story for those of us watching from afar, for the people who live there, it remains a home.
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The trailer for The Babushkas of Chernobyl.
5. YouTube
Before the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022, the zone was frequently visited. In fact, after the release of HBO’s Chernobyl series, tourism allegedly increased by 40%.
In a space where souvenirs like a stone from the ground are illegal to pick up, many instead captured the zone through their camera lens. Viewing videos from tourists and “stalkers” (illegal explorers) on YouTube, offers one of the best ways to gain insights into how the Chernobyl disaster has affected the land.
Many of these tourists capture the samoesely (resettlers), wildlife and guides who talk about the zone and what the disaster means to them.
It comes after the EU has issued a warning that passengers face a ‘very serious crisis’
Airlines have announced they are cancelling and cutting back flights to and from the UK amidst massive rises in jet fuel costs and fears over shortages. The BBC has reported that 6 carriers so far which fly to the UK have said they’re going to operate fewer flights.
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It comes after the EU has issued a warning that Europe faces a “very serious crisis” as aviation fuel supplies begin to dwindle due to the conflict in Iran, and holidaymakers may need to alter their summer travel plans.
“Unfortunately, it’s very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets,” Dan Jorgensen, the EU energy commissioner, told Sky News. “Even if we do everything we can do, if the jet fuel is not there, then it’s not there.”
Jorgensen added: “[Currently] it is primarily a crisis of prices and not yet a crisis of supply, but unfortunately we cannot be sure to prevent a crisis of supply, especially on jet fuel in the future, if the crisis continues.”
The International Energy Agency has cautioned that significant supply problems could emerge within the next five to six weeks. Airlines are already implementing measures to curb demand: the Lufthansa Group, among Europe’s largest airline operators, has confirmed the scrapping of 20,000 flights over the coming months. Meanwhile, other carriers are hiking ticket prices on long-distance routes to offset rising fuel costs.
The price of flights has been rising since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, a worry for anyone planning a summer holiday.
Which airlines are cancelling flights?
Airlines that serve the UK which plan to operate fewer flights.
KLM
Air Canada
Asiana Airlines
Delta Airlines
Lufthansa
SAS
The following companies have said they don’t plan to change their schedules:
British Airways owner IAG
EasyJet
Jet2Holidays
Flight prices
While some airlines have cut back on the number of flights to save money, others have said they will start charging more per passenger or will put up charges for luggage.
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These include:
Air France-KLM
Indigo
Pakistan International Airlines
Thai Airways
Turkish Airlines-Sun Express
Virgin Atlantic
Rory Boland, travel editor at consumer publication Which?, says overall cancellations will be a very small proportion of the millions of flights in and out of the UK, and the changes will be targeted on routes where there are multiple flights a day so that passengers can be rebooked on to an earlier or later flight. Low-cost Spanish regional airline Volotea has come under fire for saying it will add a surcharge to tickets it has already sold and is being challenged by local consumer rights groups.
Holiday giant Tui said the Iran war cost it around 40 million euros (£34.8 million) last month after it was forced to repatriate thousands of holidaymakers and staff.
Europe’s largest travel operator cut its profit forecast and suspended revenue guidance as a result, sending it shares lower.
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The company is among travel firms to have been significantly disrupted by the conflict in the Middle East, which began at the end of February. It is also among airline firms to face pressure from a surge in jet fuel prices after the conflict pushed up the price of oil.
On Wednesday, Tui told shareholders that it had to absorb 40 million euros worth of costs in March due to “repatriation efforts and related operational disruptions”.
Following the start of the war, Tui repatriated around 5,000 passengers from two cruise ships anchored in ports in Abu Dhabi.A lot of the industry’s jet fuel supplies come from the Gulf region, and most of it passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed to shipping since the start of March.
PANAMA CITY (AP) — Businesses have doled out up as much as $4 million to move boats through the Panama Canal with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, according to the Panama Canal Authority, in a move that has created a seismic shift in global trade flows.
While passage through the waterway usually comes at a flat rate via reservations, companies without reservations can cross by paying an additional fee in an auction for slots, which are awarded to the highest bidder rather than waiting for days off the coast of Panama City.
That price has ballooned in recent weeks as Iran and the United States have bottlenecked the key shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, and demand for those slots has skyrocketed. Ships have increasingly traveled through the Panama Canal as shipments are rerouted and buyers purchase from other countries to avoid commerce through now-treacherous Middle Eastern waterway.
“With all the bombings, the missiles, the drones … companies are saying it’s safer and less expensive to cross through the Panama Canal,” said Rodrigo Noriega, said lawyer and analyst in Panama City. “All of this is affecting global supply chains.”
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Meanwhile, Noriega said Panama’s government is “maximizing what it can earn from the Panama Canal.”
The average price to cross through the canal ranges between $300,000 and $400,000 depending on the vessel. Previously, to get an earlier crossing, businesses would pay an additional $250,000 to $300,000. In recent weeks, the average additional cost has jumped to around $425,000.
Ricaurte Vásquez, the canal’s administrator, said another company that he would not name paid an extra $4 million when its fuel vessel had to change its destination because of ongoing geopolitical tensions.
“It was a ship carrying fuel to Europe, and they redirected it to Singapore, and it needed to get there because Singapore is running out of fuel,” he said.
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Other oil companies paid an excess of $3 million in addition to the crossing fee to accelerate their passage in the face of soaring oil prices.
Vásquez said that ships have not piled up at the canal, but rather the costs can be attributed to last-minute shifts and greater urgency by vessels needing to get from one point to another faster in the wake of larger trade chaos.
Vásquez emphasized that the costs were not a blanket market rate, but rather a temporary toll shouldered by companies.
“They decide how high a price to go,” Vásquez said.
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At the same time it’s earning more money from the new business, Panama’s government has also been dealt a blow by the geopolitical struggle.
On Wednesday, the country’s foreign ministry accused Iran of illegally seizing a Panama-flagged vessel from the Italian company, MSC Francesca, in the Strait of Hormuz.
Panama, a country with one of the world’s largest ship registries, said the ship was “forcibly taken” by Iran. It wasn’t immediately clear if the boat remained in Iranian custody.
“This represents a serious attack on maritime security and constitute an unnecessary escalation at a time when the international community is advocating for the Strait of Hormuz to remain open to international navigation without threats or coercion of any kind,” it said.
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Noriega, the analyst, said that the amount companies are paying to cross the Panama Canal may only go up if the conflict continues to stretch on, as oil prices are already skyrocketing. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil briefly jumped above $107 this week, soaring from around $66 a barrel a year ago.
“No one really foresaw the potential effects (the war) would have on global trade,” Noriega said.
Neil Donaldson, commercial director of growers Hall Hunter, which has farms near Wokingham and Wargrave in Berkshire and Godalming in Surrey, said: “Cool nights and warm sunny days create the perfect conditions for growing sweet, full-flavoured strawberries — and that’s exactly what this weekend’s forecast is bringing.
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