easyJet expects air fares to rise towards the end of the summer as the war involving Iran feeds through to fuel costs, while bookings are already shifting away from Cyprus and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, according to Reuters.
For Cyprus, the warning is significant for the tourism market at the height of the summer season, with the airline saying travellers are moving towards western Mediterranean destinations such as Spain and away from Turkey, Egypt and Cyprus.
Reuters reported that easyJet chief executive Kenton Jarvis said the British carrier had hedged most of its fuel needs for the coming months. However, those hedges begin to fall away later in the summer and, depending on fuel prices at that point, ticket prices could increase.
“The reality is that prices will start feeding through to the consumer towards the back end of the summer,” Jarvis said, as easyJet opened a new base at Newcastle Airport in north-east England.
The conflict, now in its fourth week, has already affected booking patterns, Jarvis said, with customers clearly moving away from trips to the eastern Mediterranean.
“Eastern Mediterranean less popular, west Mediterranean more popular,” he said.
For Cyprus, this suggests the island could come under added pressure in a key holiday period if travellers continue to favour destinations perceived as farther from regional instability. easyJet has not yet changed capacity, Reuters said, but Jarvis indicated the airline could reduce frequencies on routes served by several flights a day.
Jet fuel accounts for about a third of airline costs. Reuters said Air France-KLM and SAS have already signalled fare increases, while Finnair has warned jet fuel supplies could run short because of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
easyJet said in January it had hedged 84% of its fuel needs for the first half of 2026, 62% for the second half and 43% for the first half of 2027, at average costs of $715, $688 and $671 per metric tonne respectively.
For now, Jarvis said he saw no supply problems and that easyJet was managing fuel price volatility through its usual cost controls.
“The market sees prices coming down. Will it come down to where it was before? … I don’t know,” he said, adding that fuel for delivery in six months was still available for under $1,000 despite a spot price of around $1,800.
Jarvis said the situation remained highly unpredictable and that it was still unclear how the conflict would affect demand over a longer period. He added that after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, booking volumes fell for six weeks.
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