Summer holidays and flight cancellations

[paddleboardingmum]

If you're going abroad or planning to in the summer are you worried now that your flight might be cancelled? from what it seems like on the news today we could be in problems fairly soon with running low on jet fuel. Just wondered what people think will happen.

@BerryTwister

Trump wants is for everyone’s travel plans to be disrupted, because that would affect his popularity. I’d like to think that he’d have the sense to fix this before the summer holidays started. He’ll also be under huge pressure from the airlines

He willl be, but because of differences in source and supply chains it's possible (happy to be corrected) US Domestic and internal North American flights might not come under the same pressure as those in and around UK/Europe...

US Longhaul flights to Europe might feel the squeeze, but how much does Trump care about those.....

I actually tried to look this up, and yes the USA doesn’t depend as much on Middle Eastern oil, but it does depend on it to an extent. And I think Canada is affected. Also I imagine that airlines will prioritise their long haul flights as they generate more money, so may end up cancelling some of the shorter domestic US flights, which would inconvenience Americans a great deal.

All in all, I don’t think Trump will want to be remembered as the president who brought air travel to a halt, especially when we can all still clearly remember losing our holidays to Covid.

And as @paddleboardingmum said, there’s also the World Cup to think of.

It is what it is. There’s not a lot of point in worrying about something that may or may not happen. It’s only a holiday and there’s worse things that could happen. Obviously it’s worse if people need to travel to see sick relatives etc. If our plans get cancelled, so be it. If we get stuck abroad, we will deal with it somehow. I don’t understand why the media are bleating on about holidays when there are lots of households reliant on heating oil though. The situation is worse for them if supplies of oil are limited.

The world cup starts on 11th June. Trump would look like a prize idiot if that's disrupted.

But then I genuinely thought he'd reconsider in a week so what do I know?

With EES as well though, I can imagine lots of people might stay closer to home this year or go somewhere on the ferry where it's not yet been fully implemented and jet fuel issues won't be so problematic.

Because all the media care about is catchy headlines that get people reading their stories. I live in a village with no mains gas, so we used heating oil. But that’s a boring headline. Much more exciting to tell everyone that their summer holiday is in jeopardy 🙄.

Always ahead of these events, there's a "feeling" that the infrastructure hasn't been done right and the tournament will be a disaster, but I really do think this one could be awful.

Yes and i'm not expecting a refund as insurance will claim "acts of war". Gutted.

No I'm not particularly worried. Mainly because I think it is unlikely to happen. If it does, it is likely you will be able to travel at a different time, or worst case, slighly different day. This seems like a reasonable assessment from Which.

Jet fuel crisis: why European flights – and your holidays – should still go ahead - Which?

I've currently got flights for holidays booked in June and Setember. A short family trip, plus a longer solo trip. But we travel quite often in general and neither of these trips are that big a deal. We just came back from a lovely two week holiday. So even if the trips were cancelled, I wouldn't be devastated by any means. We'd get the flight money back and my accommodation is booked separately but has free cancellation until very last minute.

That Which article is one of the better ones I've seen..just to comment on a snippet of it:

"Many carriers buy fuel in advance for many months and therefore are not exposed to current high prices. Airlines that need to buy a lot of fuel now are more likely to cancel flights."

True, but also maybe worth emphasising again that buying in advance (hedging) isn't the same as actually possessing the fuel in advance.

"You’ll see headlines about budget airlines hedging a lot of their fuel, which is true. But it’s impossible to accurately assess which airlines are in the best position in terms of fuel, as this information is not publicly available.

My emphasis, because it's absolutely correct... that sort of info isn't shared around, even within an airline.....