Will the price of plane tickets go up due to the war with Iran? Here’s what to know

By Alexandra Skores, Chris Isidore, CNN

Washington, DC (CNN) — As the war with Iran continues, oil prices are soaring and airlines will see higher fuel costs – which could hit travelers around the world in their wallets.

It will “probably start quick,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC last week.

Crude oil prices surged after the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran and hovered around $100 a barrel on Thursday, closing above $100 for the first time in nearly four years, before closing the week slightly lower at $99 a barrel.

The war has also had massive operational impacts on airlines in the region, with nearly 50,000 flights canceled since February 28, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Rob Britton is an adjunct professor of marketing at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and a retired American Airlines executive. He said for now, the availability of petroleum has only been slightly disrupted, but oil prices have soared.

“If fuel prices remain high, fares will rise,” Britton told CNN. “There’s no mystery there … So just doing some simple math, one might expect ticket prices to rise almost proportionately.”

Second to labor, an airline’s largest cost is jet fuel. Dependent upon crude oil prices, it could be 20-30% of an airline’s total expenses, Britton said.

“Historically, airlines have been prompt at raising fares when fuel prices spike,” he said.

Yet, airlines often have trouble freely passing on cost increases, such as higher fuel prices, to passengers, even if it’s costs being felt widely across the industry, said Zach Griff, author of an airline newsletter, From the Tray Table.

“There’s so much more to flight prices than just the cost of fuel or even just the cost of operating a given flight,” he said.

The demand for travel will have the greatest impact on fares that airlines can charge, Griff noted. If inflation or rising unemployment makes business and leisure travelers cut back on their plans this summer, the airlines won’t have a lot of ability to raise fares, no matter their costs.

Fuel and oil “can be extremely volatile and unpredictable, and even a small change in market fuel prices can significantly affect profitability,” Southwest Airlines’ 2025 annual report noted. “Passengers often purchase tickets well in advance of their travel, and the Company may not be able to increase fares, impose fuel surcharges, increase revenues, or decrease other operating costs sufficiently to offset rapid or prolonged fuel price increases.”

Kirby told CNBC that fuel prices could have a “meaningful” impact on United’s next quarter financial results.

“If it continues, we’ll feel it in Q2 also,” Kirby said after an event last week at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

At a Punchbowl news conference this week, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy expressed optimism, predicting a “recovery in energy markets” and praising President Donald Trump’s engagement in the conflict.

Airline cuts that could hurt passengers

Higher fuel costs have the potential to hurt passengers in another way – airlines may re-examine whether to keep some flights that were profitable with lower fuel prices but are now unprofitable.

With fewer choices for passengers, a reduced supply of tickets could itself be a factor that could raise fares.

“Airlines are going to have to keep very close tabs on costs if they want to have any semblance of a profitable summer,” Griff said. “Marginal flights are absolutely on the chopping block.”

Beyond fuel costs, airlines have already halted many of their flights to the Middle East while the war continues, losing several money-making, long-haul international flights due to safety concerns.

Griff said he’s also worried what the fuel spike will do to the future of bankrupt low-fare carrier Spirit Airlines.

The airline, which had warned investors it could be forced to go out of business, recently reached a deal with lenders to emerge from its second bankruptcy, but Griff said the fuel spike could upend those plans.

“Reemerging from bankruptcy is something that is much harder to imagine in the current environment,” he said. And if Spirit is taken out of the market, that would free other airlines to raise their fares due to the lack of low-fare competition.

Airlines try to protect from volatile energy prices

A long range version of the Boeing 777 can hold more than 45,000 gallons of jet fuel, making even modest price increases shocking for airlines which operate thousands of flights.

There are several steps carriers have taken to try and insulate their massive fuel purchases from the volatile energy markets.

This week Qantas Airways, SAS Airlines of Scandinavia and Air New Zealand took the most direct action; hiking airfares, blaming the cost of fuel during the war, according to Reuters.

Airlines cannot collectively agree to raise prices, according to Katy Nastro, a spokesperson for travel app Going.com, as that would violate laws against collusion, but nearly all carriers are dealing with the same market forces.

“After next week, we wouldn’t be surprised if we started to hear more ‘excuseflation’ begin from one carrier to the next,” she said, as they all cite the war as a reason to increase fares.

Some airlines, like SAS, Germany’s Lufthansa and Ireland’s Ryanair lock in fuel prices long before they need the fuel in a process called hedging. The financial contracts guarantee stability, but they require a lot of cash and when prices go down airlines end up overpaying.

Last year, the price of fuel was down and carriers could have lost money if they paid in advance.

For United Airlines, the cost of aircraft fuel actually decreased $360 million, or 3.1%, in 2025 compared to 2024, “primarily due to a lower average price per gallon of fuel,” according to the airline.

Carriers in the United States largely have stopped hedging fuel.

Southwest Airlines dropped the practice last year after using it for a half century, saying it had become too costly and wasn’t delivering the results anticipated.

“The company believes its cost structure has historically provided it with an advantage over many of its airline competitors,” Southwest’s 2025 annual results read. “The company remains focused on driving efficiencies to offset overall inflationary cost pressures.”

Some airlines have taken steps to modernize their fleet with newer more fuel efficient aircraft, trimming their fuel bill.

According to American’s most recent annual results, the airline took delivery of five A321XLR, a longer-range version of the A321neo. The airline believes it will “serve transatlantic markets using an estimated 10% less jet fuel per seat than current widebody aircraft due to latest-generation engines, improved aerodynamics and lighter weight materials.”

Other airlines are looking to use more sustainable aviation fuel to avoid the kind of shocks in oil prices going on right now.

United Airlines’ 2025 annual report states, “The company believes that large-scale adoption of sustainable aviation fuel in its operations is critical to helping mitigate its exposure to volatile fuel prices and achieving its environmental goals.”

Sustainable fuel sources can include waste oil and fats, municipal waste, and non-food crops, but it would take a “massive increase in production to meet demand,” according to the International Air Transport Association.

The first biojet-fueled commercial flight in the world took off in 2008. By 2025 it represented .7% of worldwide aviation fuel consumption, according to IATA.

Unlike other airlines, Delta owns an oil refinery in Pennsylvania through a subsidiary named Monroe Energy. The plant allows them to make their own aircraft fuel, though they still have to buy the raw crude oil, Delta’s annual results for 2025 read.

The refinery not only insulates Delta from some costs, but it ensures a supply of fuel into its LaGuardia and JFK International Airport hubs.

Next week, US airline chiefs are expected to speak at the JP Morgan Industrials Conference and discuss their financial outlook.

When will airfares go up?

Airfares are mostly determined by the supply of seats and demand for tickets, which hasn’t substantially changed since the war started.

Nastro said US airlines have not broadly or public raised fares, and we “haven’t seen anything truly out of the ordinary in the way of higher fares in the short term.”

Delta spokesperson Drake Castaneda said the airline was closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East, but is unable to speculate on potential impact to ticket prices.

“More broadly, Delta’s fares can vary by market and over time and are influenced by a range of factors, including supply and demand, operating costs such as fuel, seasonality and competitive dynamics,” Castaneda said.

Nastro said there’s several things we still do not know that can potentially impact travelers, like how long the conflict might last.

“The longer it does, the higher the likelihood we see a negative impact for travelers in the way of higher fares,” she said.

But Griff said summer fares are likely to be higher than those right now because that’s the period that typically sees the strongest demand.

“For those folks who are traveling in June and July, if you haven’t bought your tickets, now’s the time to do it, buy a refundable or changeable ticket,” he said, and if fares actually do drop, rebook.

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