LONDON: The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has turned something as mundane as jet fuel into aviation’s biggest strategic vulnerability, sending costs soaring, scrambling flight plans and raising uncomfortable questions about whether the era of cheap, plentiful long-haul travel is over.
What began as a limited military strike on Iran has morphed into a global supply shock rippling through airlines’ balance sheets, airport fuel tanks and holidaymakers’ plans from London to Lagos to Lahore.
At the heart of the turmoil is a simple geography lesson.
The narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula normally carries around a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil, including crude headed to Asian and European refineries and large volumes of refined jet fuel exported directly from Gulf plants.
Since Iran’s war with the US and Israel escalated and tanker traffic through Hormuz slowed to a trickle, both the raw material and the finished product have been squeezed at the same time — a double choke that has left aviation dangerously exposed.
