Jet fuel alarm in Europe: falling stocks, skyrocketing prices and risk of stopping flights by May. Brussels without a plan as the emergency grows
There are crises that announce themselves with a roar and others that creep in silently, hidden in the folds of technical bulletins, until they paralyze an entire continent. Aviation fuel belongs to the second category. The alarm put in black and white by Aci Europe – the association that brings together over 600 airports in 55 countries – and delivered to the desks of European commissioners Dan Jørgensen (Energy) and Apostolos Tzitzikostas (Transport) leaves no room for interpretation: three weeks remain. Exactly twenty-one days before the shortage of jet fuel becomes systemic, effectively shutting down the engines of European connectivity just on the eve of the summer season.
It’s not alarmism, it’s the cold mathematics of geopolitics clashing with the strategic inability of Brussels. And to understand its significance, we must look at the numbers and the harsh reality of the facts.
The Hormuz trap and the price bubble
The heart of the problem beats in the Persian Gulf. Europe, which has renounced Russian supplies for obvious reasons, now depends on imports from the Middle East for 43% of its annual kerosene needs. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz literally severed this vital artery. Every day that passes, 20 million barrels remain stuck in that patch of water, divided between 15 million crude oil and 5 million refined products, among which the fuel for our planes stands out.
The result on the financial and energy markets was immediate and brutal. The price of kerosene has more than doubled in a matter of weeks, skyrocketing to $150-200 a barrel. These are operating costs that airlines, already tried, absolutely cannot absorb and which will inevitably translate into astronomical increases in tickets, transforming summer holidays into a luxury for a privileged few. Even in the currently remote hypothesis of a lightning truce between Washington and Tehran, the technical times of maritime logistics are ruthless. A supertanker takes an average of two months to reposition, load fuel and cover the long route from the Gulf to the terminals in Rotterdam or Trieste. Added to this is the insidious issue of insurance: until the premiums for the transit of ships in areas at risk of war fall to acceptable levels, many shipowners will keep their fleets cautiously at anchor.
The stock map and the European bluff
What makes the picture truly dramatic is the real state of community stocks. The European institutional narrative has long reassured public opinion on the holding of “strategic reserves”, but the factual truth is that only a minimal and insufficient fraction of these is made up of refined kerosene ready to be placed in aircraft tanks.
According to data leaked from confidential communications between fuel suppliers and airlines, the aeronautical survival map of the Old Continent is distressingly fragmented. The remaining autonomy of several Eastern European countries and some small Western states has collapsed to just 8-10 days. This means that, without immediate releases, their airports will no longer have a drop of fuel to refuel transiting planes by mid-May. The vast majority of member states are not doing much better, navigating by sight with coverage of less than thirty days, completely incapable of going beyond the first weeks of June.
In this scenario of progressive exhaustion, Italy breathes, but does so with extreme difficulty. By fitting into an intermediate safety band estimated between 30 and 60 days, our country has guaranteed fuel “until the end of May”, a figure clearly confirmed by the president of Assaeroporti, Carlo Borgomeo. But from June onwards, perfectly coinciding with the explosion of the high tourist season, uncertainty reigns supreme again. Looking at everyone from top to bottom, in this emergency ranking, only two European countries out of twenty-seven remain, the only ones to have accumulated sufficient supplies to overcome 90 days and reach the end of the summer in relative tranquility.
“Shadow rationing” at airports
While Brussels continues to remain silent, perhaps hoping for a diplomatic stroke of luck, in airports across half the continent the emergency is already a tangible reality. Sifting through the NOTAMs, i.e. the official safety bulletins issued to pilots before take-off, it clearly emerges that several European airports, including some on Italian territory, are already applying a rationing plan that has not been publicly declared.
In certain facilities, a maximum limit of 5,000 kilograms of fuel per aircraft has been imposed, a very heavy restriction for long-haul flights. The superfluous is brutally cut to try to save the essential: supplies for private jets, for example, have been suspended almost everywhere to guarantee absolute priority to scheduled commercial flights. As a result, companies are increasingly forced to practice the costly maneuver of tankeringthat is, taking on excess fuel at non-European airports to guarantee the necessary autonomy for the return flight, but ending up weighing down the aircraft and paradoxically burning even more fuel. A perfect vicious circle.
The macroeconomic abyss and the emptiness of Brussels
The stakes in this chess game with energy go far beyond the discomfort of the stranded holidaymaker. According to Aci Europe’s calculations, air connectivity is a fundamental engine that generates 851 billion euros of GDP every year for the continent’s economies, directly and indirectly supporting the lives of 14 million workers. Then there is the vital issue of international trade. If it is true that in terms of physical volumes the plane transports a minority of goods, looking at the value of the goods the perspective is reversed: 26% of European exports travel in the skies. We are talking about irreplaceable cargo such as life-saving drugs, latest generation electronic components, high-end fashion collections and precision mechanical parts. A prolonged blockade of cargo flights starting from June would mean dealing a mortal blow for “Made in Italy” exports and for German industry, already in obvious structural trouble.
Faced with such an imminent collapse, the complaint by Olivier Jankovec, director general of Aci Europe, sounds like an outright rejection due to the inaction of the community institutions. To date, the European Union does not have any official mapping, nor a real-time monitoring system, of the availability of jet fuel. No one at the top knows exactly how much kerosene is in the continent’s tanks.
The requests made by the ports now have the bitter taste of war economy measures. The imposition of targeted production obligations on European refineries is called for, almost ignoring that the plants are already working at the limits of their capacity and to produce more kerosene they would have to drastically cut petrol or diesel for transport. The start of centralized purchases at EU level is being requested, with delay, to avoid the worst scenario: individual states starting to fight each other with increases to steal barrels from each other, replicating the miserable war of masks seen at the dawn of the pandemic. The only real lifeboat on the table looks towards the West, considering that Asia keeps its refined close to itself. Europe has only one path: buy in bulk from the United States. But depending on overseas refineries at the last minute will inevitably mean submitting to the prices and conditions dictated by Washington. And the final bill, in a script already written, will be paid without discounts by the citizens and businesses of the Old Continent.
