European airports could face jet fuel shortages within three weeks

Wtf you have to pay for fuel as a student?!

Probably a good thing, if the industry is hit hard the market for new pilots might take a hit for a little while.

If it opens tomorrow, everything is fine. Even though it takes a month, there are plenty of supplies to keep things running until further shipments arrive. The problem "within 3 weeks" is that if it doesn't reopen soon, then they will need to start rationing what they have. Cutting schedules, cancelling flights, and prioritising key routes they will keep running despite any shortage. If it reopens tomorrow, nobody needs to start rationing. They will know more fuel is on the way to top the supplies back up, and will continue running a full service.

The majority already do. Only half of Americans even own a passport.

Also less tourism to America, enough nail in the coffin from Trump to America's tourism industry

To be fair, even with increased fuel costs, European airline ticket prices could double and still be cheaper than American prices, thanks to the good ole US of A’s weak antitrust laws

I’ll never forgive them.

Well, we're in the progress of stealing Venezuela's oil.

Be serious!

My son kept an eye on flight tracker over Covid, it was shocking how many private jets were buzzing around. I know a person who flew out to Ibiza with a plane full of her mates, so much for the lockdown eh

Private jets run on working class tears. They’re fine.

Congress will amend the tax code to allow private jet owners to write off any fuel surcharges. 

Yes. We have cities, island communities and even entire counties that are heavily dependent on tourism. Losing that income is catastrophic.

Well Spain at least will get the fewer tourists they wanted.

So basically another covid-scale event?

Of course it will. People keep saying Russia will benefit, but Ukraine's been setting as much of Russia's oil infrastructure [on fire as possible](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/world/europe/ukraine-attacks-russian-oil-exports.html). >As [Moscow benefits](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/world/europe/russia-oil-suspended-sanctions-economy.html) from soaring oil prices and an easing of U.S. sanctions as a result of the war in Iran, Ukraine is trying to offset the windfall by escalating strikes on Russian oil assets. Experts describe a campaign unprecedented in scale, with Ukraine [claiming responsibility](https://mod.gov.ua/news/pekelni-udari-po-rosiyi-sili-oboroni-urazili-5-strategichnih-zavodiv-i-10-ob-yektiv-naftopererobki-u-berezni) for 10 attacks last month, though the true number is probably higher. No one will escape this. Everything burns. Well, aside from the fields in Venezuela, which the U.S. controls now. And the U.S. oil fields. U.S. oil is going to profit.

As a Canadian, if we had competent leadership here, we could be the single source of Europe’s energy needs and that would be that. No more relying on Russia, no more relying on middle eastern theocracies. Just good old Canadian oil and natural gas. It would help us and them. What are we doing here. Our idiocy has put our allies in Europe at the mercy of Putin and random warlords and kings in the Middle East. We could be North American Norway and be one of the richest countries in the world. Sigh

The actual fuel shortage is just beginning. Tankers that got through the straight pre-war are still arriving.

Oil from the Persian Gulf is mostly irrelevant to North America. Typical US imports from the ME are <4% of US oil consumption. It will not cause any serious shortages even if it drops to zero. The US is somewhat affected by the international market price of oil, but it will not face serious shortages even if the Strait of Hormuz never reopens and every single piece of oil infrastructure in the Middle East was completely destroyed. Things are radically different than in 1979 or 2003. -------- Canada is ~60% of US oil imports and Canada structurally can't export (in quantity) to anyone else because almost all of the infrastructure is only set up for exporting to the US. There's only one pipeline from the oil fields to the Pacific Coast (and none going east - Canada can't even supply itself without the oil going through the US first), it only has around ~500k bpd of practical export capacity, and it runs at 100% capacity already. Meanwhile they send 4.5 million bpd to the US on a bunch of different pipelines. ----- To be clear, I'm just stating facts here. This is not endorsement of the Iran war, Trump, or any sort of glee. Everything happening is awful.

This is so true. Don't see enough of this getting traction in the media.

Dang that sucks. Mind if I ask which route?

Probably cloudy that day.

Sorry to hear. I'm also flying BA in mid May but I haven't heard anything yet so hoping it'll be ok 🤞🏻

If only the cause wasn’t massvie refineries and oil fields being set on fire

_cries in american_ Y’all’s non high speed rail is often faster than what we call high speed over here. Hell, on the west coast we’ve barely got any rail at all

Do you even understand what you are saying? How would you connect "all of europe" with high speed rail? The amount of insanely high cost rail needed to connect all major cities in europe is insane. Even low speed rail cannot compete with aviation on price despite receiving more goverment subsidies. The cost of the infrastructure is astronomical while the infrastructure cost of a airport is c****, some regional airports are as simple as a runway and a small building. Even low speed rail projects often cost around 40 milion euro per km just to build it, highspeed rail would be even more. You don't have to believe me either, here is a nice article from the Technical University Eindhoven explaining in detail why more rail is not the answer to less flying: https://www.cursor.tue.nl/en/background/2025/mei/week-1/why-trains-are-not-yet-replacing-planes An interesting quote because i know you wont actually rrad my source: “To replace just one third of European flights, you would need to add an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 kilometers of track. That costs a trillion euros, an extreme amount of energy for all the concrete and iron, and it destroys our landscape.”

I'm going two weeks today and am choosing to try and ignore this as a risk

I'm heading out in 21 days. Would make for a good personal story if I happen to get stuck in Europe cause they cut off trans Atlantic flights on my return.

Going in 20... I'm really nervous.

Look on the bright side, if they start cancelling flghts due to fuel shortages, the ones that'll get cancelled first are relatively low demand short haul routes. The flagship long haul routes are actually the most fuel efficient (since the most fuel hungry part of flight is takeoff and climbout, and long haul routes spend more time cruising than climbing), and unlike short haul where there's competition from cars and trains, if you need to go long haul, you have to take a plane.

Just booked my flight to Japan for mid May...

Was looking on going from italy to australia, so it's a similar type of travel in september too. I really hope they don't cancel shit because it's my first long holiday i can afford in years and it has always been a dream of mine to go there

I hope you get to go! It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to go, and I can’t stop thinking about it lately

Well you are not alone with your sentiment . I was planning to go earlier but now I don’t know if I will be able to go in July at all: Great. Just Great I use too . Let’s see.