Helen Crane
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I think it depends on the situation you're in.
So obviously when this conflict first kicked off, it mostly affected people who were travelling on flights through the Middle East or were going to the Middle East.
Obviously, you know, with the war first breaking out, it wasn't possible to travel through there.
So that was kind of the first wave.
But now what we're seeing is people being affected by oil shortages and jet fuel shortages, or more kind of correctly, anticipated jet fuel shortages in the future.
So airlines aren't running out of fuel yet, but they're basically worried that the longer the conflict goes on, fuel might need to be essentially rationed.
So as you said, what they're doing is they're cutting down the number of seats they're offering, which essentially means the number of planes that...
are taking off.
It seems like what will happen is maybe flights that aren't full might be merged with other flights to save fuel.
And that's something that the government has recently given airlines the power to do.
Or flights that aren't full might be cancelled altogether.
So this is a big worry for anyone who's got a holiday planned.
This year, you know, I think it's the sort of thing that people are already talking about.
Some of my friends have mentioned it to me.
Is my holiday going to be okay?
Am I going to turn up at the airport and it's going to be cancelled?
One thing I will say, the airlines have tended to be pretty good on rescheduling someone's flight if they can or giving them their money back if they can't go so far.
Obviously, you know, that doesn't cancel out this sort of stress of having your plans changed at the last minute.
But they have been pretty decent on helping customers, not leaving them out of pocket.
Yeah, it's a difficult situation for anyone who's got something planned for this summer.