The advice of travel experts during times of turmoil is invariably that if someone really wants a holiday, they should go ahead and book it.
Things could get worse before they get better, and it would be wiser to pay over the odds for that break in the Mediterranean now than miss out altogether, or so the reasoning goes.
But events over the past week should give even the most diehard sunseekers pause for thought.
After claiming, since the start of the Iran war, that jet fuel supplies would see them through the summer, Britain’s airlines finally admitted to their concerns about the extent of reserves.
Meanwhile, the EU’s transport chief suggested airlines might be able to avoid compensating people for delays and cancellations of continental flights in the event of a fuel drought.
Holidaymakers have been here before.
Carriers, including Ryanair and British Airways, appeared to drag their heels in providing cash refunds for flights cancelled during Covid, often pushing vouchers on passengers instead.
Airlines also argued that the pandemic exempted them from paying compensation under established EU and UK rules.
Regulators ultimately intervened, but passengers were still left chasing what was owed to them up to five months after stipulated deadlines had passed.
Travellers now have more to worry about than the price of their flight after Airlines UK, the industry trade body, set out its concerns about shortages in a letter to the Government.
The lobby group, which has been previously bullish on jet fuel supplies, urged ministers to draw up an emergency plan or risk a summer of travel chaos should the Strait of Hormuz remain closed.
It urged Labour to bolster fuel reserves by forcing refineries to produce more kerosene and allow US-grade fuel to be imported, while pleading for tax cuts.
In a joint response from the Treasury and the departments for transport and energy, the Government insisted that there was no need for people to change upcoming travel plans while advising them to top up their travel insurance.
Ministers also made one crucial concession, saying rules stripping airlines of vital landing slots they failed to use would be suspended. This would allow them to “focus on minimising disruption for passengers, rather than feeling pressure to operate flights purely to protect their slots”.
The step opens the way for wholesale revisions to schedules, with UK airlines likely to shrink the number of flights on high-frequency routes, while passengers booked on cancelled services are shunted onto the surviving ones.
German airline Lufthansa has already cut 20,000 short-haul flights over the summer, saying soaring fuel prices have made many journeys unprofitable.
Apostolos ⁠Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, went a step further, warning that jet fuel shortages would most likely qualify as “extraordinary circumstances”, exempting airlines from flight compensation rules.
The regulations, known as EU261 (UK261 in Britain), provide passengers with fixed compensation for cancellations or delays of more than three hours, ranging from €250 (£220) to €600 per person, depending on the length of the flight.
Rory Boland, of consumer brand Which?, says it will ultimately be for the courts to decide whether carriers are liable should they decline to pay out.
However, there is no class action in compensation cases, putting the onus entirely on the individual to take their claim through what can be a torturous legal process.
“If two people are on the same plane and both make a claim, the airline may pay out and one and not the other,” Boland says
“There are so many hoops to jump through and the whole thing takes an enormous amount of time, so it’s really only the most tenacious passengers who get their money.”
‘Very difficult to know’
Boland says the system is also open to abuse by airlines, asserting that they have no access to fuel, and seeking to avoid compensation payments when they really have adequate supplies.
“At the moment, the limited number of cancellations we’re seeing are clearly down to airlines trying to minimise costs, which means they have to pay compensation, because no one is saying there is a fuel shortage,” he adds.
“But in a few months it’s going to be very difficult to know.”
There are also fears airlines could seek to ignore their duty of care to get people to their destination as quickly as possible, even if that means paying for them to fly with rival operators – something many carriers are loath to do.
In that event, people risk having their holiday cut short or not being able to travel at all and could also lose the entire cost of a week’s accommodation, which is not covered by the EU rules.
“If you lose a few days of your holiday or can’t travel it’s unlikely that your hotel operator will refund you,” Boland says. “So if you’ve booked a flight and hotel separately you may be left out of pocket. You can try to claim via a third party or travel insurance, but it can be difficult.”
With few signs of the Strait of Hormuz reopening to regular tanker traffic, airfares also seem likely to remain at eye-watering levels on many routes, even if fuel supplies hold out.
Prices that recently reached £350 for a short-haul flight from London to Marseilles seem likely to become the norm rather than the exception, while surcharges on long-haul flights can be huge, with Virgin Atlantic adding a £360 fuel levy to its business class fares.
Bryan Terry, of aviation consultancy Alton, says airlines are usually quick to lift prices as costs increase but far slower to lower them again.
Consumers should expect a lag of three months before any decline in crude prices works its way through to fares, he says, ruling out more affordable prices this summer.
Domnhal Slattery, the founder of aircraft-leasing giant Avolon, offers a bleaker assessment, suggesting that jet fuel prices may remain inflated for a year or more.
“My gut is that a risk premium will prevail in oil,” he says. “I’d add a 20pc premium for the next year or longer after any peace deal while supply and demand gets back into equilibrium.”
Brent crude was trading at almost $106 a barrel on Sunday, 8pc below its most recent peak of $119 on March 9. It had traded at around $60 through the end of January.
Dame Irene Hays, owner of Hays Travel, says getting away this summer nevertheless remains a priority for many Britons.
“People coming into our stores are saying they are determined to go on holiday, they just want to wait and see for a while,” she says.
“There is clear appetite, it’s just the uncertainty. But Spain, Italy and Malta are still selling well; they are where we are seeing the most consumer confidence.”
Cruise holidays, where jet fuel is usually a minor component, are a potential bright spot as Americans stay at home because of the war, says Dame Irene. This is leading to more ships being transferred to the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic and bringing down prices.
For example, Royal Caribbean is offering a £750 discount on a family cruise from Barcelona on its new vessel, Legend of the Seas, featuring theme park-style water slides.
John Grant, an analyst at Midas Aviation, believes a US-Iran deal could also bring late-season bargains in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, with airlines there forced to absorb fuel costs in order to put locations such as Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai back on the tourist map.
“Turkey is going to have to do a lot of work to recover and stimulate demand, so you could argue that holidays to Turkey will be competitively priced,” says Grant.
“The Gulf airlines are also going to have to work very hard and they’ll have their marketing and tourism teams lining up some special offers to stimulate demand.
“It depends on your appetite for taking risk, but for many people that overseas holiday, the sun and sangria, is embedded in their DNA.”
