New York jet fuel supply lowest for this time of year since 1996

Jet fuel supplies are draining fast on the East Coast, supporting wholesale prices at near-record highs just when demand for air travel is closing the gap to pre-pandemic times. East Coast jet fuel stockpiles fell for a third straight week to their lowest level seasonally since 1996, as government data reflect what suppliers in the spot market have said for the past two weeks -- there’s very little aviation fuel available. Jet fuel is fetching $7.49 a gallon, nearly double the spot price of diesel in New York and more than 1.5 times that of gasoline. Since fuel accounts for up to a third of airline operating expenses, airfares will likely get a lot pricier. Some carriers have already begun to pare flights due to high fuel costs -- and those decisions were made a month ago, when jet prices were less than half of what they are now. Fuel costs are forcing airlines to scale back at a time when air travel is slowly returning to pre-Covid levels. The number of passengers going through security at U.S. airports averaged 2.08m per day in the first five days of April, around 9.9% lower than the same period in 2019, according to Transportation Security Administration data. March travelers were down by 12.4% compared with 2019. The fuel scarcity is partly a result of U.S. refiners prioritizing diesel in the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent Europe scrambling for the fuel. The European Union relied on Russia for about a fifth of its diesel imports in 2019. As jet fuel and diesel share some overlap in the refining process, maximizing diesel meant cutting back on the aviation fuel. <br/>