A worker fuels a Delta Airlines plane at Salt Lake City International Airport on April 09, 2026. As fuel prices continue to rise amid the war in Iran, airlines around the world are canceling flights and scaling back routes due to surging jet fuel prices. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled since the start of the war in Iran, a rise even sharper than spikes seen in gasoline and diesel. In response, airlines worldwide are cutting routes, raising fares, adding fuel surcharges and boosting baggage fees.
In Asia, some countries are rationing fuel and restricting exports to cope with the shock to supplies and to jet fuel in particular. “This is an Asian crisis,” says George Shaw, an analyst at trade analytics firm Kpler. “They’re in a worse position than anyone else.”
In Europe, Airports Council International Europe — a group representing airport operators — warned the European Commission that if “significant and stable” passage doesn’t resume through the Strait of Hormuz by the end of April, “systemic jet fuel shortage is set to become a reality for the EU.” Some analysts are skeptical that shortages would set in that quickly.
The world’s three top jet fuel producers have been knocked out
Traffic of ships through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a trickle, which affects jet fuel in two ways. First, the Persian Gulf hosts many refineries that make jet fuel and export it around the world; the disruption is blocking that finished product from reaching markets. Second, crude oil from the Gulf — used as feedstock for refineries worldwide, including major jet-fuel producers in Asia — is also being blocked. The finished product and the raw material are both experiencing supply shocks. “It’s really a double whammy,” Shaw says.
To illustrate the scale: the top three global exporters of jet fuel are China, South Korea and Kuwait. China has banned exports of jet fuel and South Korea has cut back production because it can’t get enough crude. Kuwait can produce jet fuel but can’t send it out. In effect, the three top global suppliers of aviation fuel are all essentially knocked out at once.
The U.S. can’t fully escape the global crisis
Europe and Asia are especially affected because they rely directly on crude oil and refined products shipped out of the Persian Gulf. But even the U.S. — the world’s largest oil producer and a net exporter of jet fuel — is interconnected with this global system.
California has been importing some jet fuel from Asia “for quite a while,” says David Ruisard, head of U.S. products assessment at commodities intelligence group Argus. Refineries have been shutting down in California, with companies citing state environmental regulations as a factor. Meanwhile, the U.S. produces abundant jet fuel in refineries in Louisiana and Texas, but that fuel would have to travel through the Panama Canal to reach Los Angeles; it’s often cheaper and easier to bring a tanker from South Korea, which is currently in a crunch. “It could be a problem for imports reaching that market” on the U.S. West Coast, Ruisard says.
Delta says the spike will cost an additional $2 billion this quarter
U.S. carriers largely stopped fuel hedging — using financial contracts to lock in future fuel prices — after hedging proved expensive when prices later fell. That leaves airlines exposed to sudden price spikes. Delta recently told investors it expects higher fuel prices to cost an additional $2 billion this quarter. Delta is relatively better off because it owns a refinery.
“We woke up this morning with a very different set of fuel assumptions than we had when we went to bed,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said, describing the dramatic shift in prices since the war began. He said Delta is cutting unprofitable flights and recapturing higher fuel costs by raising ticket prices — and that customers still seem to be buying. Delta isn’t worried about shortages in the near term, Bastian said. Shaw of Kpler adds that raising ticket prices and cutting unprofitable routes should be enough to prevent shortages in the U.S. and Europe, though Asia may face different risks.
Prices expected to remain elevated
Even if ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz resumed immediately, prices would stay high for weeks. Restarting production in Middle East oil fields that shut down takes time; refineries require complex processes to be brought back online, and some facilities may be damaged. Rystad Energy has estimated oil and gas facilities in the Middle East have suffered as much as $50 billion in damage from the war.
Once production resumes, tankers still take weeks to travel to buyers, creating further delays before markets see relief. According to Argus, the last shipment of jet fuel to pass through the Strait of Hormuz arrived in Europe; it had been loaded on Feb. 28, before the war began, and took weeks to complete its journey. No more deliveries are en route now. Even if the strait reopened and a tanker left today, it would still be weeks before arrival.
“The market’s effectively seized up,” Shaw says. “It will take a long time for it to get back to a semblance of normality, even in the most optimistic scenario.”