With the price of oil and ready-to-use jet fuel up by more than 85% and showing no signs of coming down as the war in Iran continues, airlines are among the first to feel the blow to their cost of operations.
JetBlue Airways was the first major U.S. carrier to raise the cost of luggage on domestic flights at the start of April while United Airlines followed shortly after. Both cited “rising operating costs” and the cost of jet fuel.
As the conflict set off by the U.S.-Israeli killing of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spreads into a wider conflict throughout the region, analysts are warning that many smaller airlines may end up cutting the number of flights they run to make up for fuel costs.
“Huge rise in the global cost of fuel”: Skybus on canceled Cornwall-London route
On April 3, British regional airline Skybus temporarily canceled all of its flights on a route between Cornwall Airport Newquay (NQY) in the southwestern tip of the country and London Gatwick (LGW).
Skybus managing director Jonathan Hinkles named “the huge rise in the global cost of fuel” as the reason to cut the flight that had already been scheduled to end at the end of May due to low bookings two months early.
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The daily flight had been getting subsidies by the British government to connect a remote part of the country to the capital but ended up running up to 80% empty for much of the year.
“At a time of great economic uncertainty and steps being taken to conserve energy worldwide, it is neither environmentally nor economically sound for us to continue flying with vastly reduced passenger numbers,” Hinkles said in his press statement.
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Skybus, which is the shortened form of Isles of Scilly Skybus and was established in 1984 to provide air service to the Cornish coast, took over the Newquay flight from regional competitor Eastern Airways when the latter collapsed in bankruptcy in October 2025.
Skybus
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Skybus will continue to run flights to remote UK destinations like the Isles of Scilly, Exeter and Land’s End while travelers with canceled Newquay bookings will be contacted by the airline to initiate a refund.
Aurigny, another British regional carrier serving the Channel Islands, has also significantly reduced its flight schedule from Guernsey to London over what it classifies as “proactive measures to address the impact of global instability.”
At the start of April, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has warned that British airlines could be among the hardest-hit by rising jet fuel prices due to the higher percentage of oil they get from Kuwait.
The country’s airlines get up to 25% of its oil supply from the tiny Middle Eastern country that has been seeing its oil refineries and other critical infrastructure targeted by Iranian drone and missile strikes.
Regional flights to remote territories, meanwhile, are some of the least cost-effective to run due to the lower market for them.
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