Jet2, the London-listed leisure travel group, has announced a significant £250 million share buyback program following a robust fiscal performance. The company expects to report a profit before foreign exchange revaluation and taxation of between £565.0 million and £570.0 million for the year ended 31 March, marking a 9% increase from the previous year. This move underscores Jet2's confidence in its sustainable cash-generative business model and strong balance sheet, which boasts total cash of £3.2 billion and an 'Own Cash' balance of £1.1 billion at the end of FY25.

The share buyback initiative is set to enhance earnings per share by cancelling the repurchased shares, a strategy that has been well-received by the market. Peel Hunt analysts described the buyback as 'very positive,' highlighting the company's robust financial health. Jet2's decision reflects a broader trend among corporations with strong cash positions to return value to shareholders, albeit in a manner that favors institutional investors over private ones, especially those investing through tax-free wrappers like ISAs.

Looking forward, Jet2 is optimistic about its growth prospects, with 'on sale capacity' for summer 2025 currently 8.3% higher than the previous year, totaling 18.6 million seats. This expansion is partly attributed to the company's new bases at Bournemouth and London Luton airports, which contribute approximately 4% of the growth. Despite the positive outlook, Jet2 acknowledges the challenges posed by limited visibility and a trend towards later booking profiles in the travel sector.

The announcement has had a palpable impact on Jet2's stock, with shares climbing nearly 15% following the release of its trading statement. Analysts from RBC and Peel Hunt have lauded the company's strong return on invested capital and attractive valuation, suggesting that Jet2's integrated model and customer experience position it well for continued growth and value creation in the competitive leisure travel market.

A major outage at Amazon Web Services has disrupted operations for numerous popular applications and platforms globally, affecting millions of users. The cloud computing infrastructure failure began early Monday morning, with users reporting widespread issues accessing services including Snapchat, Duolingo, Zoom, and various gaming platforms. Amazon confirmed it was investigating increased error rates and latency across multiple AWS services, though the company has not yet identified the root cause of the system failure.

The disruption appears to have originated with servers hosted in the US-EAST-1 region, according to initial reports. This triggered a cascade effect that impacted AWS infrastructure supporting millions of websites and applications worldwide. Downdetector, a platform that monitors service outages, reported receiving over four million problem reports in a single morning—more than double the typical weekly volume—indicating the scale of the disruption across affected services.

Among the services experiencing significant operational problems are communication platforms like Zoom, Signal, and Slack; gaming services including Roblox, Fortnite, and PlayStation Network; social media applications such as Snapchat; and financial services from banks including Lloyds and Bank of Scotland. Streaming platforms Prime Video and Crunchyroll, along with educational tool Duolingo and design platform Canva, have also been affected by the cloud service failure.

The outage has manifested differently across regions, with Amazon's own websites remaining operational in Europe while still experiencing service-specific errors. AWS engineers are actively working to mitigate the issues and restore normal operations. The company has committed to providing regular updates as they work to resolve the widespread service disruption that has highlighted the internet's heavy reliance on cloud infrastructure providers.