Business Diary: Ryanair cashes in at passengers' expense

Another cunning new idea from the folks at Ryanair, who plan to start selling advertising on their boarding cards next year. Passengers on the airline have to check in online, printing their own boarding cards at home. So that means they'll be meeting any print costs ordinarily incurred by Ryanair or the advertisers themselves.

Fidelity four get the push for fantasy game

Fidelity, the world's biggest mutual fund manager, has strict policies on gambling, with staff forbidden to indulge during work time, let alone use their office computers to place their bets. Still, four staff in one of Fidelity's Texas offices were a little surprised to be fired after being caught playing fantasy football at work. It cost $20 to play the game, so Fidelity felt it had to take a hard line.

Mervyn misses out on a chance to match Ben

Disappointment at the Bank of England following Time magazine's decision to make Ben Bernanke its person of the year. Radio 4's Today programme seems to have stopped running its Person of the Year vote (those naughty politicians kept trying to rig the polls), which means there is no chance of Mervyn King emulating his American colleague.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

Dean Finch got to practise his disgruntled face yesterday, after regulators ruled Tube Lines should get much less funding for work being done for London Underground than the company had hoped. Mr Finch is swapping the top job at Tube Lines for the same post at National Express in the new year, where he can expect to have an equally tough time with transport watchdogs.

The bookies' guide to a safe flight

Wondering who to fly with in order to avoid the fate of the travellers left stranded by Flyglobespan? Paddy Power is quoting odds on the next airline to go down. Its favourite is Wizzair, at 4/1, with Finnair and Malev up with the favourites. British Airways, for the record, comes in at 10/1. Act quickly though – last year the airlines kicked up a fuss about the betting and forced Paddy Power to pull their rankings.

Number of the day: £110bn

The EU's budget for 2010, cleared yesterday by the European Parliament, which is 6 per cent more than this year.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk