Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) will add a US$15-25 fu­el sur­charge to all re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tick­ets. The sur­charge will ap­ply per sec­tor and will be ap­plied to all tick­ets pur­chased on or be­fore April 10. Tick­ets bought be­fore April 10 will not at­tract the fu­el sur­charge. How­ev­er, tick­ets for flights be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­main un­af­fect­ed.

The an­nounce­ment comes as the avi­a­tion in­dus­try grap­ples with soar­ing glob­al jet fu­el prices due to the US/Is­rael-Iran con­flict. In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the air­line said the fu­el sur­charge on­ly helps to off­set a por­tion of the ris­ing costs and CAL will con­tin­ue to ab­sorb a sig­nif­i­cant share of the costs in a bid to min­imise the im­pact on pas­sen­gers. The air­line al­so said its base fare re­main un­changed.

Air­lines across the world have been in­tro­duc­ing fu­el sur­charges, cut­ting ca­pac­i­ty, and rais­ing bag­gage fees as they seek to off­set the ad­di­tion­al fu­el costs, which in some cas­es are ac­count­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 per cent of op­er­at­ing costs when it usu­al­ly is around 27 per cent. At least five Amer­i­can car­ri­ers have raised bag­gage fees by $10, with the lat­est an­nounce­ments com­ing yes­ter­day from Dal­las-based Amer­i­can Air­lines and Seat­tle-based Alas­ka Air­lines.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, Caribbean Air­lines said “no de­ci­sions have been made at this time re­gard­ing any in­crease” in bag­gage fees but the air­line con­tin­ues to re­view its cost struc­ture.

While CAL’s base fares aren’t in­creas­ing, the ad­di­tion­al fu­el sur­charge means tick­et prices will go up.

Ac­cord­ing to In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) pres­i­dent gen­er­al Willie Walsh, high­er fares, at least in the short term, are in­evitable.

Speak­ing at IA­TA’s World Da­ta Sym­po­sium in Sin­ga­pore on Wednes­day Walsh said, “What the in­dus­try strug­gles with is the short-term re­ac­tion to the rapid in­crease, and it’s how quick­ly we can re­spond to that…This is not a cri­sis that is any­where close to what we ex­pe­ri­enced in COVID. And air­lines still have a lot of levers that they can pull to re­spond to this, but the im­me­di­ate one will be to re­flect the high­er costs through high­er tick­et prices. It’s just in­evitable that that will hap­pen.”

He said most air­lines should be able to nav­i­gate their way through this lat­est chal­lenge once they take sen­si­ble de­ci­sions, but did raise con­cerns about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fu­el short­ages even if the two-week cease­fire deal be­tween the US and Iran holds.

“The con­cern at the mo­ment is around the po­ten­tial short­age of the re­fined prod­uct of jet,” he said.

Adding that “It will take some time for re­finer­ies out­side of the re­gion to adapt and in­crease the sup­ply of jet [fu­el]. But In­dia has the ca­pac­i­ty to in­crease re­fin­ing, Nige­ria, big re­fin­ery there. So, you know, we could see an in­crease in the re­fined prod­uct, it will take a bit of time to ad­just. Then there has been dam­age to some of the in­fra­struc­ture for the re­finer­ies, and that will take time to re­cov­er.” Walsh is pre­dict­ing that prices will re­turn to where they were by the end of the year.

IA­TA is a trade or­gan­i­sa­tion that rep­re­sents over 360 of the world’s air­lines.