Cathay Pacific has confirmed hundreds of passenger flights will be axed in the early summer months due to the fuel crisis sparked by the Iran war.
The airline, which operates more than 10,000 flights every month, confirmed two per cent of its flights will be cancelled from May 16 to June 30, impacting hundreds of routes and thousands of travellers.
The cancellations are expected to affect a number of regional routes as well as popular long-haul flight destinations across Australia and South Asia.
Cathay Pacific said it was a “last resort” but comes due to “increased costs”, particularly relating to jet fuel which has rocketed around the world since the outbreak of the Iran war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, its budget airline HK Express is due to cut six per cent of flights.
In a statement, the airline said: “All affected customers will be offered protection onto flights departing within 24 hours of their originally scheduled flights. The ongoing volatile situation in the Middle East continues to negatively impact the price of jet fuel […] placing huge cost pressure on airlines around the world.”
The strait, a key global shipping passage through which more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas travels, has seen just a handful of ships pass through each day since the conflict erupted on February 28, prompting a spike in jet fuel and worldwide shortages.
Cathay Pacific isn’t the first to announce a mass cancellation of flights either, with Air New Zealand, SAS and United Airlines axing hundreds a month. Italian airports also introduced restrictions on jet fuel after the disruption.
In the UK, Skybus announced it pulled all flights from Cornwall to London due to a lack of demand and the rising costs.
Ryanair has issued similar warnings, with CEO Michael O’Leary saying there is a risk it will have to follow suit and cancel hundreds of flights in May and June.
“Fuel suppliers are constantly looking at the market. We don’t expect any disruption until early May, but if the war continues, we do run the risk of supply disruptions in Europe in May and June, and we hope the war will finish sooner than that and the risk to supply will be eliminated,” he said.
“We think there is a reasonable risk, some low level, maybe 10 per cent to 25 per cent of our supplies might be at risk through May and June, so like everyone else in this industry, we hope the war ends sooner rather than later. If the war finishes by April and the Strait of Hormuz reopens, then there is almost no risk to supply.”
Meanwhile, the lobby group for airports across Europe, ACI Europe, said jet fuel reserves are running dangerously low and could run dry in just a matter of weeks.
“If the passage through the Strait of Hormuz does not resume in any significant and stable way within the next three weeks, systemic jet fuel shortage is set to become a reality,” they said.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby echoed the message, stating it’s “entirely possible that parts of Asia are just going to run out of fuel”.
Mirror