Flight price increases looming as jet fuel costs skyrocket

South African travellers are likely to soon face significantly higher flight prices after jet fuel costs increased by approximately 70% at two of South Africa’s three major airports.
Cape Town International Airport and King Shaka International Airport in Durban have both raised the cost of Jet A1 fuel in response to the growing oil costs due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Domestic airline, FlySafair, earlier, announced that it would introduce a temporary fuel surcharge on ticket prices as a result.
The surcharge will come into effect on Thursday and will apply only to flights departing on or before the 12th of May 2026.
Aviation Expert, Linden Burns, says South Africans could see airlines implementing a number of changes in the coming weeks in an effort to mitigate fuel costs.
“The other way in which airlines can also mitigate costs, obviously, would be to try and consolidate flights, reduce the number of flights that they have, try and make sure that they’re maximizing and filling the aircraft that they do have, not flying as often,” says Burns.
“That hasn’t happened yet. We’re not seeing airlines moving to those levels yet. Because there’s still plenty of demand for air travel. But if we find that the economy does take a serious turn to the left and things get worse, then I think we’ll start seeing demand for travel, and especially discretionary travel start to fall and then we might see airlines reducing their capacity,” he adds.
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/flight-rate-increases-looming-as-jet-fuel-costs-skyrocket/