Good morning. Today we're talking about Thames Water’s cash injection, summer flight cancellations and inflation target commitments.

Big Stories

Water lifeline

Thames Water has secured a £750m cash injection from its shareholders, as the struggling utilities company tries to avoid nationalisation. The investment falls short of the £1.5bn that the water regulator, Ofwat, had said Thames was seeking last week. However, it is a significant boost for the company, which has been under pressure from the government to improve its performance. The cash injection will be used to help Thames upgrade its infrastructure and reduce leakage. The company has said that it needs to invest £2.5bn by 2030 to meet the government's targets for water quality and efficiency. There was speculation that if Thames - which has debts of around £14bn - failed to secure fresh funds it could be temporarily taken over by the government until a new buyer is found.

Summer travel chaos

EasyJet has cancelled around 1,700 flights from its summer schedule, blaming constrained European airspace and air traffic control strikes. The cancellations, which represent about one day's worth of flying during the summer season, will affect flights to and from London Gatwick airport and over 100,000 passengers. The budget airline said the cancellations were necessary to "minimize disruption" for passengers. EasyJet insisted the delays are not due to staff shortages, which plagued the aviation sector last year.

Bank’s inflation commitment

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has said that he is committed to "seeing the job through" on inflation, despite the risk of a recession. In a speech to finance executives on Monday, Bailey said that the central bank would "do what is necessary" to bring inflation back to its 2% target from the current rate of 8.7%. Bailey acknowledged that the Bank's actions could lead to a slowdown in economic growth, but he said that this was a necessary risk to take. "We cannot allow inflation to become embedded," he said. "If we do, the cost will be higher in the long run.” The Bank has raised interest rates 13 consecutive times since 2021 in an attempt to cool the economy and bring inflation under control.

Elsewhere...

Cash crunch: Investment into UK fintech firms has slumped by more than a third in the latest sign of challenging conditions facing the sector.

Walking out: More London Underground drivers are set to take strike action as part of a dispute over pensions and conditions.

New boss: BT has kicked off a formal search for a new CEO.

Buyer’s remorse: Elon Musk is suing the law firm that helped force him to buy Twitter.

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