

Jet fuel is running out in Europe. Why your summer travel plans are at risk.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.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.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
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