November air passenger numbers to be unveiled

The owner of Alton Towers, Merlin Entertainments, is updating investors tomorrow on trading

Investors will discover this week whether the Paris and Egypt terror attacks put people off flying. Passenger numbers for November, to be unveiled by IAG and easyJet on Thursday and Friday respectively, are expected to show a drop in traffic after both suspended flights between the UK and Sharm el-Sheikh when a Russian plane was downed.

Monarch also cancelled flights, as did tour operators Thomas Cook and Thomson (owned by FTSE 100 firm TUI). Last week, Peter Fankhauser, the chief executive of Thomas Cook, warned that the travel industry faced an “unprecedented level of disruption”.

His comments came as the firm, which lost £130m of revenue when it stopped holidays to Tunisia until next April, revealed a fall in bookings from France and other European countries.

Until the string of attacks, there was a wave of profit guidance upgrades from European airlines.

The owner of Alton Towers, Merlin Entertainments, is updating investors tomorrow on trading before its financial year ends next month. Last week, it revealed that the rollercoaster crash in June was a result of human error.

Annual results out today from Aberdeen Asset Management will reveal the fallout from the slowdown in emerging markets, where the asset manager makes most of its money, while shareholders of the sausage maker Cranswick hope for sizzling first-half sales.

Tomorrow, there are annual results from Topps Tiles and first-half results from FTSE 250 van rental firm Northgate, while on Wednesday, there are annual results from the online property company Zoopla and business software firm Sage and half-year results from the pubs group Greene King.

Rounding things off on Friday is the housebuilder Berkeley Group with first-half results.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank is expected to reveal an extension of its quantitative easing programme.

US non-farm payrolls, showing how many jobs the US added in November, are the last jobs figures before US policymakers decide whether to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006, with investors expecting they will.