{"id":535033,"date":"2026-04-17T00:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535033\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:17:08","slug":"airlines-cancel-flights-ground-planes-as-jet-fuel-shock-hits-europe-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535033\/","title":{"rendered":"Airlines cancel flights, ground planes as jet fuel shock hits Europe \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The German group also cited rising costs linked to recent strikes, which on Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welt.de\/wirtschaft\/plus69de1ee159ccbeb442d69282\/airline-streik-streit-stillstand-bei-der-lufthansa-eskaliert-zum-jubilaeum-der-arbeitskampf.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">overshadowed<\/a>\u00a0the airline\u2019s 100th anniversary celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>Legacy airline groups aren&#8217;t the only ones struggling with the impact of high fuel prices on their balance sheets.<\/p>\n<p>Budget airline easyJet\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.easyjet.com\/investors\/regulatory-news\/news-details\/default.aspx?slug=trading-update-for-the-six-months-ended-31-march-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">said<\/a> Thursday that its fuel costs had risen by almost \u20ac29 million in March alone, and that its before-tax losses were expected to increase to between \u20ac620 million and \u20ac640 million in the six months to March, up from \u20ac450 million a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Latvian carrier airBaltic is also in a critical situation and is dependent on financial support.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Evika Sili\u0146a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EvikaSilina\/status\/2044364444151558290?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">had said<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday she was ready to face \u201cthe collapse of the coalition\u201d in light of the reluctance of her ruling partners to approve a \u20ac30 million loan the airline requested at the end of March.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although airBaltic\u2019s difficulties\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mk.gov.lv\/lv\/media\/26180\/download?attachment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">predate<\/a>\u00a0the Middle East war, ratings agency Fitch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fitchratings.com\/research\/corporate-finance\/fitch-downgrades-air-baltic-corporation-to-ccc-10-04-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">warned<\/a> that rising fuel prices were putting further pressure on the carrier\u2019s liquidity, noting it had \u201chedged only around 10 percent of its 2026 fuel consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Latvian government on Thursday\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bnn-news.com\/30-million-euros-for-airbaltic-committee-says-yes-but-tensions-remain-279342\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">secured<\/a>\u00a0the loan for the carrier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German group also cited rising costs linked to recent strikes, which on Wednesday overshadowed\u00a0the airline\u2019s 100th anniversary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5138,458,84,459,156576,158660,819,3360,59,145,52806,79268,467,632,2987,474,642,56,54,55,636,163220],"class_list":{"0":"post-535033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-airlines","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-energy-crisis","13":"tag-fatih-birol","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-fuels","16":"tag-gb","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-latvia","19":"tag-liquidity","20":"tag-markets","21":"tag-middle-east","22":"tag-oil","23":"tag-tax","24":"tag-the-netherlands","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-unitedkingdom","28":"tag-war","29":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}