By Avi Salzman
A jet fuel shortage is leading airlines to cut flights, and could cause a severe slowdown in travel this summer -- particularly in Europe.
German carrier Lufthansa said this week it is canceling 20,000 flights from now through October, immediately reducing its flight schedule by 120 trips a day. Reductions are happening all over, including at the company's hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Brussels, and Rome.
More than a dozen other airlines have also reduced capacity, including discount Norwegian airline Norse Atlantic, which cut flights from Los Angeles. American carriers are not in danger of running out of fuel, but U.S. airlines have begun to reduce flights to save money, too, with Delta Air Lines dropping its expected capacity by 3.5 percentage points.
It's all because of the war in Iran. The war has caused a mess throughout the entire oil market, but jet fuel is a particular point of pain, and Europe has been hit the hardest of all.
On Friday Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, rose 1.6% to $100.97, while West Texas Intermediate futures were up 1.8% at $97.56.
The Middle East is normally the largest source of jet fuel exports in the world. Today, it has very few ways to export that fuel, because the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed by Iran and a U.S. blockade. Alternate supplies of fuel that would normally be able to replace those volumes are also severely limited. Middle Eastern producers can't get their crude oil to Asia, which normally refines the oil into fuel and sends it to Europe and elsewhere. Instead, Asian countries such as China are suspending fuel exports, in order to save supplies for their own populations.
That puts Europe in a particularly bad spot. The math is daunting: in normal times, Europe uses about 1.6 million barrels a day of jet fuel. The continent imports about one-third of its supply -- and 75% of that, or around 375,000 barrels, comes from the Middle East. That supply has now fallen to a trickle. Prices of jet fuel in Europe have already doubled since the war began. Because the worldwide jet fuel export market is just 2 million barrels a day -- tiny in comparison to the 107 million barrel oil market -- it's not so easy to find new sources.
High prices are one problem -- no one wants to pay a fuel surcharge on their airline ticket. But it's not just a price issue anymore. Literal shortages are emerging. The International Energy Agency believes Europe may have only six weeks of supply left.
Others see supplies running out even faster. David Doherty, the head commodities analyst at BloombergNEF, said that the shortage was not as apparent in the first month of the war, because tankers from the Middle East can take a month or more to arrive in Europe -- so ships that had left right before the war broke out were still dropping off supplies early this month.
"Now they're no longer landing, and they're no longer departing," he said. While Europe has some jet fuel in storage, he sees supplies running out in four to five weeks.
Europe is looking to alternate suppliers, and has been importing more from Africa, for instance. The United States is also picking up some of the slack, but can only do so much. Normally, the U.S. exports about 200,000 barrels per day of jet fuel around the world, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration. Lately, it's been exporting closer to 400,000 barrels per day, hitting a record weekly average of 442,000 earlier this month.
Prices are high enough to incentivize refiners in some unlikely places to send jet fuel to Europe. One tanker left from New York harbor to Europe this month, an exceptionally rare occurrence, according to Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at OPIS, which is owned by Dow Jones publisher Barron's.
But U.S. exports have been wavering substantially week-to-week, and the largest share of U.S. jet fuel goes to Canada and Mexico, so there's only so much available supply to divert to Europe.
American travelers may pay more to fly this summer, but they otherwise don't have much to worry about -- with one important exception. "They're good to fly, I suppose," Doherty said. "I mean, unless it's to Europe and you can't refill on the way back, which is the whole issue."
Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 24, 2026 09:17 ET (13:17 GMT)
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