Jet‑fuel crunch bites

Airlines do not usually cancel flights because fuel gets expensive. They cancel when fuel gets scarce. That is what has started to happen after the war with Iran turned the Strait of Hormuz from a chokepoint into a bottleneck for the global fuel system. Since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, U.S. jet fuel prices have jumped from $2.50 a gallon on February 27 to $4.88 on April 2, according to Airlines for America and CNBC’s reporting on airline contingency plans (airlines.org) (cnbc.com). That price shock matters because jet fuel is not just another petroleum product. Airlines burn it locally, at the airports where planes depart, and the world’s refining and shipping system is not built with much slack. IATA’s latest fuel monitor shows the global average jet fuel price rising 7.1% in a week to $209 a barrel, which means airlines are being squeezed by both cost and availability at the same time (iata.org). The problem is worse outside the United States, because Europe and much of Asia depend more heavily on imported refined fuel, not just imported crude (cnbc.com). That is why the first visible damage is showing up in schedules. Lufthansa has told staff it is drawing up war-related contingency plans that include possible aircraft groundings if fuel shortages deepen, while United Airlines has already warned it may need to cut some Asia flying because those routes are especially exposed to overseas fueling constraints (cnbc.com). Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said on April 1 that if fuel supply to Europe is disrupted in June, July, or August, airlines will have to start canceling summer flights, with the biggest cuts likely at the most constrained airports (marketscreener.com). The crunch is even sharper for airlines whose networks run through the Gulf. Qatar Airways said on April 1 that it was still rebuilding its schedule through dedicated corridors coordinated with Qatar’s civil aviation authority, and that it expected to serve more than 120 destinations by mid-May as operations stabilized (qatarairways.com). But rebuilding a schedule is not the same as restoring capacity. Qatar still has to move the same long-haul passengers with fewer reliable options. That is where the A380 grounding lands with a thud. Qatar Airways has eight Airbus A380s in its fleet, and those aircraft are its blunt instrument for moving a lot of people on a few dense long-haul routes (qatarairways.com) (planelogger.com). Reporting this week says all eight are grounded for April and May, forcing the airline to reshuffle widebody assignments and cut thousands of seats from routes that were built around the world’s largest passenger jet (simpleflying.com). That makes this shortage different from a normal oil spike. High crude prices hurt margins. A shortage of jet fuel scrambles the physical map of aviation. Planes that exist on paper cannot fly without fuel at the far end of the route. Airlines can absorb some of that by raising fares, adding surcharges, or trimming weak flights first. They cannot improvise a refinery, reopen a blocked shipping lane, or replace an A380 with anything else that carries 500-plus people at once. For April and May, Qatar’s eight double-deckers are sitting in Doha (simpleflying.com).