#290 Fuel Is Half Your Ticket Price: Why Flights Are So Expensive Right Now

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Brent crude went back through 100 dollars a barrel on 9 September after the United States and Iran started striking each other again, and it was still above 100 dollars nearly two weeks later. Fuel makes up 50 to 55 percent of what it costs FlySafair to operate a flight. Put those two facts together and you have the reason a family of four is looking at the price of flying to Cape Town this long weekend and quietly getting the car keys out instead.

Bryan and Ryan take the fuel story apart from the pilot's side of the door. Why Johannesburg has had a jet fuel supply problem of its own since an unplanned shutdown at the Natref refinery in late August, and what tankering actually means when an airline carries extra fuel into Johannesburg so it does not have to fill up there. Why FlySafair calls tankering a last resort, and why the cost of every contingency ends up in your ticket. Whether the surcharges that came in during March ever really went away when oil dipped. And the question everyone is asking: if you are flying in December, should you book now?

Then the guys tell their own low-fuel stories, and these are the best fifteen minutes of the episode. Ryan on a Friday night flight to Windhoek early in his airline career, the weather closing in, and a diversion to Gaborone flown right down to reserves. Bryan on a DC-9 to the Seychelles with his father doing the fuel calculations on a whizz wheel, the numbers getting worse and worse, until they realised his dad's watch had stopped. A CRJ out of East London with the nose gear stuck down, held at 15,000 feet and 250 knots, Bloemfontein closed by weather, and a landing in Johannesburg with about 500 kilograms of fuel left. And Ryan in a medevac Hawker coming home from Mauritius into a 160 knot headwind, when the flight computer said fuel remaining at Lanseria: zero.

Also this week: a GPS fault that grounded Azul's Embraer E2 fleet in Brazil for three hours, and why pilots are being told to expect GPS not to work. Boeing's 777X certification slipping into 2027 because the engine fix still needs testing. A missile strike on the fuel storage tanks at Riyadh's airport. Qatar Airways calling this war the biggest crisis in its history and cutting back to routes that make money. And the UK's air traffic control system failing for the second time in two weeks.

IN THIS EPISODE

Oil back above 100 dollars, and what the jet fuel price is doing to airfares.

Johannesburg's jet fuel supply squeeze after the