The price of Jet-A fuel in the United States averaged $8.63 per gallon in April 2026. That is $1.77 more than March. It is $2.03 more than a year ago. And it is more than double what it cost before Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in late February. For anyone who flies — commercially, militarily, or in a Cessna on weekends — the number matters. Fuel is the single largest operating cost in aviation. When it spikes like this, everything downstream changes: ticket prices, flight schedules, military readiness, and the economics of learning to fly.

The Hormuz Chokepoint

Around 40 percent of the world’s jet fuel supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. When Iran effectively closed the strait in late February as part of the broader conflict, the global fuel supply chain buckled almost immediately. The global average jet fuel price hit $209 per barrel in the first week of April — up more than 132 percent compared to a year earlier. At roughly $1,573 per tonne, jet fuel is now more than double its pre-conflict level. For airlines already operating on thin margins after years of post-pandemic recovery, the spike is existential.

What Airlines Are Doing

The response across the industry has been swift and painful. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has predicted that summer flight cancellations could reach 5 to 10 percent if the strait remains closed. United Airlines has announced plans to cut approximately 5 percent of planned routes during the second and third quarters of 2026. Air India has hiked fuel surcharges. European airports have warned of a systemic jet fuel shortage if the strait does not reopen within weeks. The ceasefire announced on April 8 brought some relief to crude oil markets, but jet fuel prices have not followed. Refining capacity in the Middle East has been disrupted by the conflict, and rebuilding supply chains takes months, not days. Industry group IATA has warned that jet fuel supply could take months to recover even after Hormuz fully reopens.

The GA Squeeze

The pain is not limited to airlines. General aviation pilots — the weekend flyers, the flight schools, the small charter operators — are feeling it too. At $8.63 a gallon, filling the tanks of a Cessna 172 for a training flight costs roughly $400. A cross-country trip in a Bonanza can easily run over $1,000 in fuel alone. For flight schools already struggling with aircraft shortages and instructor availability, the fuel price surge adds another barrier to entry. Student pilots are the most price-sensitive population in aviation. When the cost of an hour of flight training jumps by 30 percent in two months, some students delay. Others quit. The fuel crisis is a reminder that aviation does not exist in a geopolitical vacuum. A naval blockade in the Persian Gulf raises the price of a training flight in Kansas. An air war over Iran changes the cost of a holiday to Majorca. Everything in aviation is connected to everything else — and right now, all the connections run through Hormuz.

Sources: Aviation Week, CNBC, Euronews, Time Magazine, IATA