Europe's jet fuel position is thinner than the industry had assumed. According to Reuters, cited by PYOK, the continent is now sitting on roughly one month of jet fuel supply, while the consultancy Energy Aspects warns that Europe could face a supply deficit of 600,000 barrels per day in the third quarter β precisely the window in which airlines run their heaviest summer schedules.
The squeeze traces back to the Strait of Hormuz. Before the conflict with Iran began at the end of February, Europe and the United Kingdom sourced the majority of their jet fuel from the Middle East, primarily Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, on long tanker voyages that begin with passage through the strait. With the ceasefire now over and access to the waterway contested again, that supply line is once more in question.
Why Europe Is Exposed
The vulnerability is structural, not sudden. Europe and the UK have closed a significant amount of their own refining capacity in recent years, leaving them unusually dependent on imported jet fuel. When the Middle Eastern route is disrupted, there is no domestic buffer to fall back on β only alternative imports, which so far have come from Canada, India, Nigeria and the United States.
Those substitutions have kept the fuel flowing. In the early weeks of the crisis, there were also plenty of tankers already in transit that had cleared the strait before the fighting started, which cushioned the immediate impact.
The Real Pain Has Been Price, Not Supply
For most airlines, the problem to date has not been finding jet fuel but paying for it. Carriers that had not hedged β locking in a set price regardless of where the wholesale market moves β have absorbed sharp cost increases. That flows directly into fares, and the industry expects airfares to stay elevated for some time. Delta Air Lines, for its part, has signalled that it will not necessarily cut fares in step with any fall in the jet fuel price.
No Cancellations Yet
Crucially, none of this has translated into flight cancellations. When the strait first closed, airlines were alarmed; that panic subsided once alternative supplies were secured, and carriers went on to tell customers they could book the summer with confidence.
The risk window is the back end of the summer season, when schedules peak and any deficit bites hardest. It is also worth keeping the warnings in perspective: the industry has heard versions of this alarm before, and aircraft have kept flying. The most likely outcome remains an expensive summer rather than a grounded one β but with a month of cover and a 600,000-barrel-a-day hole forecast for the quarter, the margin for a fresh shock is uncomfortably thin.
Sources: PYOK, Reuters. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By James Holloway.
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