Europe faces fuel crunch

Europe’s airports are warning they could start running short of jet fuel within about three weeks if tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz does not recover, and the warning went straight to the European Commission in a letter dated April 9. (reuters.com) Jet fuel is the aviation version of a grocery store’s daily bread supply: airports do not keep months of it sitting around, so a shipping blockage can turn into canceled flights faster than most travelers expect. (nytimes.com) The chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that normally carries huge volumes of crude oil and refined fuels out of the Gulf. The International Energy Agency said in March that flows through the strait had fallen from about 20 million barrels a day before the war to a trickle. (iea.org) Europe is exposed because it buys a meaningful share of its jet fuel from refineries linked to Gulf exports, including cargoes loaded in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, and China. S&P Global reported Europe’s jet fuel and kerosene imports fell to 253,000 metric tons in the week to March 22 from 602,000 metric tons a week earlier. (spglobal.com) This is not just a paper shortage on a Brussels desk anymore. Euronews reported on April 6 that four northern Italian airports — Bologna, Milan Linate, Treviso, and Venice — had already introduced refueling limits, with priority given to long-haul and medical flights. (euronews.com) Airports Council International Europe said the risk is “systemic,” which in plain English means one airport cannot easily borrow its way out if the whole network is short at the same time. A fuel truck can be rerouted; a continent-wide supply gap cannot. (cnbc.com) The timing is bad because Europe is heading into its busiest flying months. Eurocontrol’s spring 2026 outlook said Friday traffic was expected to rise from about 31,900 flights in early April to 34,000 flights by mid-May, with summer Fridays in 2024 often above 35,000 flights. (flightprointernational.com) That means airlines are being squeezed from two sides at once: less fuel arriving and more planes needing it every week. Reuters reported airports were already warning of flight cancellations and wider disruption if the bottleneck persists into the summer schedule. (reuters.com) The airport industry’s ask is not vague. ACI Europe wants the European Union to map fuel stocks airport by airport, ease rules that slow emergency redistribution, coordinate supply purchases, and support more production of sustainable aviation fuel inside Europe so the region is less dependent on imports through one narrow sea lane. (businesstravelnewseurope.com) If the strait reopens soon, this could fade into a costly near miss. If it stays constrained into late April, the first signs most passengers will notice are likely to be fuel stops, route cuts, and cancellations that start at the edges of the network and then spread toward the big hubs. (wsj.com)