Major airlines cancel 13,000 flights in May - including more than 100 from Heathrow

Over 100 flights have disappeared from the May schedule at Heathrow Airport as jet fuel prices climb further amid the ongoing US-Iran war. London Heathrow schedules have cut 111 flights amid fears that the long-term supply of jet fuel could cause further cancellations this summer. UK airlines were told at the weekend they could have more flexibility to consolidate flights on popular routes if needed. Two million airline seats have been cut from May's schedules as airlines redraw their operations because of soaring jet fuel prices amid the Middle East conflict , the Guardian reported. Oil prices have soared since the start of the US-Iran war more than two months ago, when the US and Israel carried out joint strikes on several key Iranian sites. Iran retaliated by striking sites across the Middle East and closing the critical Strait of Hormuz trade route, through which 20% of global oil traded passes. About 13,000 fewer flights will operate in May around the world after recent cancellations, according to data from the aviation analytics company Cirium. Some of the two million seats have been cut by using smaller planes and outright cancellations. The biggest drop in flight numbers come from Istanbul and Munich. Turkish Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa have made huge cuts. Lufthansa has cut 20,000 short-haul flights, operated by its CityLine subsidiary. Most short-haul carriers operating in the UK are well hedged on jet fuel. This means they do not expect to face immediate cost increases. Budget carriers EasyJet and Wizz Air have committed to operate their summer schedules in full, despite pressure on the unhedged portion of their fuel bill. The industry says it is not experiencing any current shortages, given the usual six weeks’ visibility of supply, but international agencies have predicted that Europe faces shortages of jet fuel if the war in the Middle East continues to disrupt supplies. The UK government has said that unusual measures could be taken in advance to avoid late disruption for holidaymakers over the summer season. This includes consolidating schedules on routes where there were multiple flights to the same place on the same day. Ministers said that if carriers have not sold a significant proportion of tickets, flights may also be cancelled to prevent wasting fuel from running near-empty planes. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, has said there were no “immediate supply issues”, but the government was “preparing now to give families long-term certainty and avoid unnecessary disruption at the departure gate this summer”.