Air Canada will stop flying to New York's JFK International airport over the summer due to jet fuel shortages that have sent prices soaring during the Iran war.
Canada's flag carrier said Friday that service from Toronto and Montreal to JFK will halt June 1 and resume Oct. 25.
Service to the New York metropolitan area's two other airports — LaGuardia and Newark — will continue and Air Canada says it will reach out to customers impacted by the suspension with alternate travel options.
“As jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the Iran conflict and some lower profitability routes and flights are no longer economic, and we are making schedule adjustments accordingly,” a spokesman for the Montreal-based carrier said Friday.
The average price for a gallon of jet fuel reached $4.32 on Thursday, up from $2.50 the day before the war in Iran broke out, according to Argus Media.
Oil prices dropped more than 10% Friday after Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is open again for commercial tankers carrying oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
Fuel and labor costs are typically the largest annual expenses for airlines. Delta Air said this month that the tab for higher fuel would add $2 billion to its second-quarter costs. Airlines including JetBlue and United Airlines are raising bag fees to offset skyrocketing fuel costs, while others scale back service.
In an exclusive Associated Press interview Thursday, International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol said Europe has “maybe six weeks” of remaining jet fuel supplies and said the global economy faces its “largest energy crisis.”
Air Canada’s announcement comes a day after Lufthansa said it is grounding 27 planes permanently, the first major carrier to do so.
Nigerian carriers said they could be forced to stop flying altogether as soon as Monday as governments and airlines sound increasingly urgent alarms about diminishing jet fuel supplies and soaring prices due to the Iran war.
