As fuel prices swing, travellers face higher costs, fewer flight options

Washington: A new reality is setting in for travellers worldwide: rising fees, fewer flight options and difficult decisions about whether a trip is worth the cost.

The culprit is volatile oil and jet fuel prices, which have spiked sharply since the war in the Middle

East began and fighting near the narrow Strait of Hormuz created a chokepoint for global oil supplies.

“Volatility is the real story here,” said Shye Gilad, a former airline captain who now teaches at Georgetown University’s business school. “Right now, the airlines are trying to make bets on what they think will happen in the future.”

Airlines are responding cautiously, trimming schedules and adjusting prices in ways that experts say will ripple unevenly

across the market but ultimately affect nearly every type of traveller.

Budget airlines and the price-conscious customers who rely on them are likely to feel the pinch first and most acutely, experts say,

but even travellers in premium cabins won’t escape the higher prices and less convenient schedules.

Oil prices have swung wildly in recent weeks, briefly topping USD 119 a barrel at one point, and then plunging Wednesday below USD 95 after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in the Middle East that briefly reopened the Strait of Hormuz.