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The price of jet fuel has more than doubled from where it was a year ago and the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport is one of many airports seeing changes, including flight cancellations, as a result.
Courtney Burns, the CEO of the Greater Moncton International Airport Authority, said while the changes are minor, there isn’t much the airport can do in the face of the global fuel crisis.
“We have a small lever we can pull in terms of rates and fees, but we try very hard not to do that,” she said. “It’s important to us to keep our costs low, to remain competitive, to attract additional service and keep the cost low for our airline partners and ultimately our passengers.
“So it’s quite a balancing act.”
Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport CEO Courtney Burns said the changes are affecting certain PAL Airlines and WestJet flights. (Alexandre Silberman/CBC)
The Strait of Hormuz has remained mostly closed since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February. Oil tankers have been blocked from getting through the critical waterway, causing the price of jet fuel to more than double.
Burns said two of the airport’s airlines are making adjustments for the month of June only — at this point. She said WestJet, which flies daily from Moncton to Calgary, will be cutting a total of six flights across the month. So far, she said these dates include June 3, 16 and 18, with three other dates to be determined.
Passengers would have already been notified, she said.
Burns said the other change is with PAL Airlines. She said PAL flies from Moncton to Deer Lake, N.L., onto St. John’s six times a week, and it will be cutting one of those flights a week for June. PAL also typically flies five times a week to Mont-Joli, Que., onto Wabush, N.L., but one of those weekly flights will also be cut.
“[The airlines] ultimately do want to get you to where you’ve booked and in a timely manner, but if they can get out in front of that in advance,” she said. “It’s not, you know, tonight at midnight, you’re finding out, ‘oh, tomorrow we’re pulling it because of fuel costs.’
“They’re looking at six or eight weeks in this case.”
WestJet will be cutting a total of six flights in June, Burns said. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
The Saint John and Fredericton airports confirmed that they were not experiencing any changes because of the fuel crisis.
John Gradek, a faculty lecturer in supply networks and aviation management at McGill University, said a barrel of aviation fuel in February would have cost $60, and now that price is around $160.
If the fuel surge continues, Gradek said people will see flights continue to be cancelled — typically off-peak ones.
“They’ll start cutting back on those flights that are less loaded and thus less profitable,” he said.
Gradek said Air Canada hedged fuel, for the most part, meaning they bought contracts back in January to cover off five or six months, but those will be expiring shortly.
Overall, he said the price increase isn’t impacting selective carriers and all carriers operating jet equipment are in the same boat.
“Whether it’s Pascan, whether it’s PAL, whether it’s Air Canada, whether it’s WestJet, Flair, Porter, … they’re all paying that price,” he said. “They may have different strategies to kind of minimize the impact of that.
“They’re all trying to make sure that they’re making their bottom line as sane as they possibly can.”
