The war in Ukraine and the repercussions of the conflict on the price of oil are already impacting airlines, which are forced to increase the price of plane tickets.
Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, was clear this Wednesday, March 16. With the war in Ukraine and the rise in oil prices, “it will be necessary to expect a repercussion of the increase in the price of kerosene on plane tickets”. Having just emerged from the Covid crisis, airlines will have to face a new crisis: that of the fuel.
In recent weeks, fuel prices have exploded with a price at the pump far exceeding the symbolic threshold of two euros, for diesel and gasoline. A barrel of Brent last week crossed $139, the highest level since 2008, as Western sanctions piled up once morest Moscow due to the invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine, causing disruptions in supply chains from Russia.
Problem this increase is already reflected in the price of kerosene and airlines plan to increase the price of airline tickets.
An already visible increase
A few months before the summer holidays, this increase is already visible on certain flights, observes Marc Rochet, General Manager of Air Caraïbes at World : “private companies have already raised the prices of their plane tickets by 8%”, he indicates. This corresponds to an increase of 40 to 60 euros on tickets to the West Indies.
It must be said that the fuel charge can represent up to 45% of the price of a ticket on long flights. A little less for medium-haul. In the long term and if the conflict gets bogged down, the increase in plane tickets might rise between 15% and 20% more.
It will therefore be necessary to be vigilant regarding future variations. According to Le Monde, Air France is the only French company not to have increased its fares. Some companies benefit from stock or fixed price contracts, signed before the crisis between Russia and Ukraine. The impact might therefore be limited but not avoidable.
Longer flights
In addition to soaring fuel prices, there are constraints linked to bans on overflights of certain airspaces such as that of Ukraine or Russia. Planes are forced to make detourss and therefore of fly longer. This applies in particular to flights to Asia.
Thus, a Paris-Tokyo, for example, today lasts two hours longer than before the conflict. Planes being forced to pass over Kazakhstan. Worse, when a Tokyo-London passed over Russia it must now take the opposite route and pass through Greenland. More kilometers therefore more kerosene consumed.
For now, kerosene prices remain contained but might well go up or down in the next few months. The situation, more than ever uncertain as to the outcome of the conflict, defies all predictions and experts are struggling to predict the evolution of the war.
OPEC said on Tuesday that oil demand in 2022 would depend on the consequences of the war in Ukraine and rising prices, which raises the possibility of a future downward revision of its forecast for this year.
