EasyJet flew high in the last quarter of 2019 partly on the coattails of Thomas Cook's collapse as the business upped its revenue guidance.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the low-cost airline believes per-seat revenue grew by 1.5% because of the problems Thomas Cook faced, with overall revenue per seat increasing by 8.8% to £58.63 in the three months to December 31.

The company also said that new initiatives to sell more luggage space, and allocated seats, as well as offering car rentals from a partner, helped push up revenues.

READ MORE: New food and drink hub wins record £10m in public funding

EasyJet said 22.2 million passengers flew on its planes in the quarter, an increase of 2.8% compared with the same period a year earlier.

Passenger revenue grew 9.7% to £1.1 billion.
The load factor - the percentage of seats that were occupied - was 91.3%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points.

The airline said 75% of its seats have been booked for the first half of the year, ending March 31 - one percentage point ahead of the same time last year.

Mr Lundgren said: "I'm pleased that we have made a strong start to the year, with continued positive momentum. The improvement in our revenue per seat has been driven by our self-help revenue initiatives combined with robust customer demand and a lower capacity growth market."

Thomas Cook fell into administration in September, ending a 178-year history. EasyJet snapped up some of the airline's slots at airports as administrators tried to sell off parts of the business in order to pay back some of the travel giant's debts.

TalkTalk has sold its fibre networks rollout business to Cityfibre for £200 million.

The deal for Fibrenation was supposed to be completed last year, but was delayed following Labour's announcement that it planned to nationalise parts of BT if it won the general election.

READ MORE: Scottish firms hail strong year on the FTSE

It has now been finalised and makes Cityfibre the UK's third largest digital infrastructure platform behind Virgin and BT.

Greg Mesch, chief executive of Goldman Sachs-backed Cityfibre, said: "The UK is a service-based economy, and this runs best on full fibre.

"Ensuring national coverage is critical and this can only be achieved by driving infrastructure competition at scale. This deal demonstrates the appetite from industry to see it established."

TalkTalk chief executive Tristia Harrison said: "This agreement is good news for TalkTalk and good news for Britain's fibre rollout.
"Our investment over the last five years and the excellent work delivered by the Fibrenation team, combined with Cityfibre's well-established platform, will support wide geographical reach of full fibre and further drive competition and customer take-up in the market."

The deal is subject to approval from TalkTalk's shareholders.

Dixons Carphone had a mixed Christmas, with its electricals division holding up well in difficult conditions but its mobile phone business continuing to suffer.

It revealed that sales in its electricals division - which includes Currys PC World - were up 2% on a like-for-like basis over the 10 weeks to January 4.

READ MORE: Meat-free haggis helps butcher to sales spike

At Carphone Warehouse sales fell 9% as the company gets to grips with the changing face of the market.

Chief executive Alex Baldock said: "Peak saw us continue to invest in our strategic initiatives with encouraging results.

"Credit and services adoption rates increased, online sales grew strongly, and our newly remodelled stores performed well.

"Coupled with our unambiguous 'You won't get it cheaper. Full stop' price promise, alongside better availability and delivery, this led to big improvements in customer satisfaction and strong market share gains in electricals."

He added that supersized TVs were particularly popular, with sales of 65-inch models up 75%. Dyson products, Shark vacuum sales, Fitbit, Apple Airpods and Nintendo Switches also did well.

Overseas, there was stronger growth for the retailer's Nordics and Greek divisions, with like-for-like sales up 3% and 6% respectively.

Dixons Carphone added that demand for domestic appliances and kitchens was high, with online growth up 5%. In the UK and Ireland online sales rose 7%.

On the mobile business, the company said it is working on plans to launch a new offer later this year.

Its focus on selling goods on credit continues to be successful, with such transactions up 40% year on year.