During the great oil crisis In the 1970s, several US airlines began do something unusual to save fuel: deliberately reduce speed in mid-flight. Some They even eliminated olives of the salads served on board because every extra kilo mattered when kerosene prices skyrocketed. Half a century later, the airline industry is once again discovering the extent to which a distant energy conflict can transform something as everyday as getting on a plane.
Goodbye to flying “cheap”. For more than two decades, Europe got used to it to something that would have seemed absurd in any other era: crossing the continent for less money than it costs to park your car at an airport. The low cost airlines They transformed the plane into an everyday means of transportation and normalized impromptu getaways, whirlwind weekends, and vacations designed around ridiculously cheap tickets.
It so happens that the war around Iran is beginning to put into question precisely that model. He Closing of Hormuzthe brutal increase in the price of kerosene and the interruption of routes are hitting the economic heart of commercial aviation. And little by little an uncomfortable idea is beginning to emerge for the European consumer: those 20 euro flights that seemed eternal could have been a historical anomaly much more fragile than it seemed.
Hormuz on the plane ticket. The Financial Times said this week that the connection between a conflict in the Middle East and a cheap flight between European cities seems distant until fuel starts to run out. Near the 40% of kerosene that Europe uses passes through the Strait of Hormuz, now converted into one of the main energy bottlenecks on the planet. The war has duplicated the global price of aviation fuel and forced to cancel tens of thousands of flights that simply became unprofitable.
Some airlines have started even to carry out truly desperate logistical maneuvers to refuel in other countries or avoid certain routes. The problem is especially delicate because, even before the crisis, fuel was already the higher operating cost from any airline. When kerosene skyrockets, the entire financial architecture of the low-cost model begins to falter.
Natural selection in war. Because commercial aviation has always been a brutally competitive industry with minimal margins, but the conflict with Iran is accelerating a consolidation process which had been occurring for years. There we have as a first reference the Spirit Airlines bankruptcywhich has been interpreted by many executives as the beginning of a new wave of mergers, disappearances and cuts.
Weaker airlines, especially those focused on ultra-cheap fares, are beginning to face a scenario where maintaining extremely low prices can stop being viable. Even giants like Ryanair, easyJet or Wizz Air They watch with concern How rising fuel prices threaten the core appeal of your business. The problem is structural: no executive really wants to sell cheap tickets; wants to fill planes generating profits. And the less competition that survives the crisis, the easier it will be raise rates without fear of losing passengers.
Flying expensive, again. For years, the expansion of low cost created the feeling that flying cheap was something natural and irreversible. But much of this phenomenon depended on a extremely delicate balance: relatively affordable fuel, enormous competition between companies, cheap secondary airports and a constant availability of efficient aircraft. The war is simultaneously eroding several of those pillars.
Manufacturers such as Boeing or Airbus delays accumulate on deliveries, airlines are removing old models that consume too much and many routes are beginning to become economically unviable. Even historical giants such as Lufthansa or Air France-KLM already they are cutting thousands of flights to reduce costs. The worrying thing is that many of these measures could be maintained even after the conflict, consolidating a smaller, more concentrated industry with fewer incentives to maintain ultra-low rates.
The new aerial geography. The crisis also threatens to redraw part of the world aviation map. For years, hubs like Dubai or Doha became authentic nerve centers that connected Europe and Asia thanks to abundant fuel, optimized routes and giants like Emirates or Qatar Airways. The war has hit precisely that network. Airspace closures, mass cancellations and supply problems have meant that many direct routes between Asia and Europe they fill even despite strong price increases.
Some European companies are temporarily taking advantage of this situation, but everyone knows that when the Gulf airlines regain capacity they will start again a tariff war aggressive The difference is that this time they will do it in a context where fuel can remain expensive for a long time.
The real problem: winter. Because summer still offers some room for maneuver as planes fly full and holidays sustain demand even with higher prices. But the industry’s real fear is what may happen next. If the conflict continues, energy prices remain high and airlines begin to exhaust their financial coverage on fuel, many winter routes they could disappear directly.
That would open a dangerous spiral: fewer flights imply fixed costs that are more difficult to distribute, which forces prices to rise even further and further reduces demand. The risk is to end up entering a dynamic where low-cost travel stops being the dominant standard and once again becomes something much more limitedseasonal and expensive. In other words, the war in Iran is beginning to remind the West of something it had forgotten: behind every cheap 20-euro flight there was always abundant oil and geopolitical stability.
And neither of those things seem guaranteed right now.
Image | Pexels, Picryl, Picryl
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