London - UK shares retreated on Tuesday, with the British travel sector down again as weakness following attacks in France and Mali continued to weigh on shares.
British travel and leisure stocks were hit after data from ForwardKeys showed that new flight bookings to Paris, one of the world's most visited cities, have fallen by over a quarter in the week following the attacks there that killed 130 people.
The FTSE 350 travel and leisure index was down 1.2 percent, set to extend its losses for a third trading session.
The US State Department issued a global travel alert for Americans planning to travel following deadly militant attacks in France and Mali.
Adding to global tensions, Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian-made warplane near the Syrian border.
“There's a bit of geopolitical concern out there at the moment - we've had a couple of incidents last week, and now today our screens are filled with pictures of this Russian jet being shot down over Syria by Turkey,” Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets, said, adding that this was dragging on travel-sensitive areas of the stock market in particular.
Budget airline carrier easyJet fell 3.6 percent, while International Consolidated Airlines Group was down 3.3 percent.
Intercontinental Hotels Group declined 2.7 percent, and tourism company TUI retreated 1.4 percent.
Education publisher Pearson joined the travel stocks at the bottom of the index, falling 2.9 percent after Berenberg analysts cut their price target on the stock, saying that it was more likely that the dividend would need to be reset.
The FTSE 100 index was down 0.8 percent at 6,257.60 points at 09h32 GMT, extending the previous session's losses.
Firmly in positive territory was engineering support services company Babcock International Group, up nearly 5 percent after the company reported a rise in first half revenue and said that it was on track to meet its full-year expectations.
Likewise product testing firm Intertek Group rose 2.7 percent on the back of a set of positive company results, beating revenue forecasts and reaffirming its full-year target.
REUTERS