Thursday, April 16 – The travel industry has reported that they are experiencing a sharply reduced rate of summer bookings across the board.

Mediterranean destinations, including Spain, Greece, and Portugal, are trailing last year’s figures, but Cyprus has fallen considerably further behind. Three factors have combined to produce this outcome: the island’s name has been directly associated with the Middle East conflict; many countries issued travel advisories; and the drone strike on the British Bases received wide and sustained television coverage across Europe.

Reuters reports that air travel’s worst crisis in years lurched deeper on Tuesday as Qantas Airways warned ‌of spiralling costs, Lufthansa said it may have to ground planes, and Virgin Atlantic flagged a looming supply crunch, with the Iran conflict squeezing fuel supplies.

The war has upended routes between Asia and Europe that relied on Gulf hubs, while a doubling of jet fuel prices and tightening of supplies are hitting all airlines hard, whether for long-haul or short-haul routes.

Europe has “maybe six weeks of jet fuel left”, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and oil and other cargo begin to move, it will not be enough to return the situation to normal in the short to medium-term. It will allow an initial supply of oil and goods via the ships stuck in the Straits. Still, empty ships will have to return to the Straits to keep products and goods flowing. Ship owners and marine insurance companies have already stated that they will not allow their ships to return to the Persian Gulf if there is any risk that a resolution will only be temporary.

A further problem is that once oil tankers do start to leave the Straits, it will take weeks for the ships to reach their destination refineries, and for the crude oil to be refined into usable products and delivered to end users.