Australia’s Qantas Airways said today it has raised its fuel cost outlook and \u2060delayed a planned share buyback, citing sharply higher and volatile jet fuel prices after the war in the Middle East disrupted oil supplies.<\/p>\n
The airline said jet fuel prices have more than doubled, lifting its estimated fuel bill for the second half of fiscal 2026 to A$3.1 billion-A$3.3 billion, up from its prior forecast of A$2.5 billion.<\/p>\n
The surge underscores how quickly geopolitical shocks are feeding into airline cost bases, with jet fuel prices soaring as refinery output has been curtailed following \u200cthe loss of crude supplies \u2060from the Middle East.<\/p>\n
While Qantas has hedged much of its crude exposure, it remains significantly exposed to the spike in jet fuel spreads, the Australian flag carrier said.<\/p>\n
To offset rising costs, Qantas is raising fares and shifting capacity toward stronger routes such as Europe, where demand remains firm, while trimming domestic capacity \u200cby about 5 percentage points in the June quarter.<\/p>\n
“Qantas continues to see strong demand for international travel to Europe as customers seek \u2060alternative routes,” the airline said.<\/p>\n
“In response, the group has redeployed capacity from the US and \u200cits domestic network to increase flights to Paris and Rome,” it added.<\/p>\n
Revenue per available seat \u2060kilometre (RASK), a \u200ckey measureof pricing power, is expected to rise 4%-6% for international operations and about 5% domestically in the half year to June, reflecting higher fares, Qantas said.<\/p>\n
“Apart from increasing fares and reducing capacity, Qantas may impose \u2060a fuel surcharge to help offset the additional costs,” said Craig Sidney, senior investment adviser at \u2060Shaw and Partners.<\/p>\n
“The Australian airline industry will continue to be impacted whilst fuel costs are elevated, particularly unhedged refinery costs,” he added.<\/p>\n
The scale and speed of the fuel shock have prompted Qantas to take a more cautious capital stance, with management opting to hold off on a previously flagged A$150m buyback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s Qantas Airways said today it has raised its fuel cost outlook and \u2060delayed a planned share buyback,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-397571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}