While oil prices fell sharply on Friday amid President Donald Trump’s false claim that Iran had reopened the Strait of Hormuz, they remain at record highs over the war in Iran and are expected to continue to fluctuate. By Apr. 18, the passage was once again under blockade as Iranian leadership disputed the claim that it reopened the Strait; instead, it fired on several ships attempting to pass.
A day earlier, the International Energy Agency warned that as the global passage of oil remains severely restricted, many European countries could run out of jet fuel in as little as six weeks.
“Several European countries may start to face shortages of jet fuel in the next six weeks, depending how much they are able to import from international markets to replace the lost supply from the Middle East,” the Paris-based international agency issuing recommendations on global energy policy said to the Associated Press, as The Globe and Mail reported.
“Some flights might be canceled as a result of lack of jet fuel”
Executive Director Fatih Birol also classified the current situation as “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced” that will result in travelers soon “hear[ing] the news that some of the flights from City A to City B might be canceled as a result of lack of jet fuel.”
Multiple airlines are already reworking schedules to make for the best use of jet fuel. Delta Air Lines and Air Canada both cut a number of summer routes from their schedules.
“As jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the Iran conflict and some lower profitability routes and flights are no longer economic, we are making schedule adjustments accordingly,” Air Canada said in its statement.
Dutch flag carrier KLM canceled as many as 160 flights initially slated between May and September. German airline giant Lufthansa has taken the even more drastic step of shutting down its regional subsidiary CityLine a year earlier than initially planned, “in view of significantly increased kerosene prices, which have more than doubled compared to the period before the Iran war.”
Which flights will get canceled over jet fuel this year
Asian airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Asiana, Air Asia, and Vietjet have all also made cuts in different networks to trim less profitable routes.
For travelers in different parts of the world, the lack of a swift resolution to the conflict that was set off by the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran last February means that one could soon find that routes between many smaller cities will be the first to get cut in favor of ones that go between major hubs.
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United Airlines chief executive Scott Kirby was among the multiple airline executives to give interviews in which he warns travelers that the impact on consumers in terms of both the flights they have available to them and what they will end up paying “will probably start quick.”
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary also said that “we and all other airlines would have to start looking at canceling some flights or taking some capacity out” in the coming months.
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Veronika Bondarenko
Senior Writer
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