Cathay Pacific has announced a chunk of its scheduled summer flights will be cancelled due to the cost of jet fuel
Cathay Pacific has confirmed hundreds of passenger flights will be axed in the early summer months due to the fuel crisis sparked by the Iran war.
The airline, which operates more than 10,000 flights every month, confirmed two percent of its flights will be cancelled from May 16 to June 30, impacting hundreds of routes and thousands of travellers.
The cancellations are expected to affect a number of regional routes as well as popular long-haul flight destinations across Australia and South Asia.
Cathay Pacific said it was a “last resort” but comes due to “increased costs”, particularly relating to jet fuel which has rocketed around the world since the outbreak of the Iran war and its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, its budget airline HK Express is due to cut six percent of flights.
In a statement, the airliner said: “All affected customers will be offered protection onto flights departing within 24 hours of their originally scheduled flights.
“The ongoing volatile situation in the Middle East continues to negatively impact the price of jet fuel […] placing huge cost pressure on airlines around the world.”
The strait, a key global shipping passage through which more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas travels, has seen just a handful of ships pass through each day since the conflict erupted on February 28, prompting a spike in jet fuel and worldwide shortages.
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