Brent Crude Oil Price Spike
This month, Brent Crude Oil prices have jumped from around $70 to over $100 a barrel - and nobody is particularly sure how long that's going to last. Wherever oil prices go, jet fuel prices tend to follow, with complete indifference to the budget you've carefully set aside for the Mouse. With summer approaching and headlines full of flight cancellations, it's understandable that UK holidaymakers are starting to panic, especially with a Walt Disney World trip coming up. So let's separate what's actually worth worrying about from what isn't.
We recently published the article which dives into why flights from the UK to Orlando are so expensive, and a large component of that cost is jet fuel. The price airlines pay for jet fuel is directly linked to the price of Brent Crude Oil.
How Does This Affect Flight Prices?
Jet fuel is typically the second-largest operating cost after staff, accounting for somewhere between 20% and 30% of what it costs to run a flight, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). So when fuel prices move sharply, the profitability of every single flight moves with them. Airlines can't consistently run flights at a loss any more than you'd drive to work if the petrol to get there cost more than your day's wages - at some point, you'd just stay home.
To put the scale of this into context - and bear in mind these figures will vary in reality, as airlines negotiate their own fuel contracts and pricing - a British Airways 777 flying from London Gatwick to Orlando burns around 16,000 gallons of jet fuel on a single flight. According to the Argus US Jet Fuel Index, jet fuel was sitting at around $2.17 per gallon at the end of February 2026 - meaning that one flight cost roughly $34,720 (around £26,000) in fuel alone. By 20th March, that same gallon had jumped to $4.56 - more than doubling in a matter of weeks - pushing the fuel bill for that same flight to around $72,960 (roughly £55,000). That's an increase of nearly £29,000 in fuel costs, per flight.
Don't miss out on the latest Walt Disney World package offers for Brits ↓
🏰 View Walt Disney World Package Offers
🎟️ View Walt Disney World Ticket Offers
To put that another way, at the average price of a Gatwick to Orlando economy ticket, an airline would need to sell roughly 100 extra seats just to cover the difference - and unfortunately, the overhead lockers are already rammed with luggage. As we'll go on to explain though, for UK airlines, a short-term spike in jet fuel prices isn't quite the disaster it might sound - so long as it is relatively short term.
Will This Affect My Flight?
For those of us in the UK who are currently counting down the days to a Disney trip this year, the obvious question is: does any of this actually affect my flights? The answer, which is somewhat reassuring, probably not as much as feared - but there are a few things worth understanding, particularly when you see headlines about airlines cancelling flights and wonder whether yours might be next. It can depend on something called fuel hedging - and this is where the UK and US aviation industries often take rather different approaches.
What Is Airline Fuel Hedging?
Fuel hedging is essentially an airline taking out financial insurance against fuel price spikes. Rather than buying jet fuel at whatever the market rate happens to be on the day, an airline agrees in advance to purchase a certain amount at a locked-in price - sometimes months or even years before that fuel is actually needed. If prices then spike, the airline is protected because they've already secured their supply at the lower agreed rate. If prices fall, they may end up paying more than the current rate - but that's the trade-off for certainty.
It's not unlike fixing your home energy tariff. If the current electricity rate is 25p/kWh, your supplier might offer you a fixed rate of 28p/kWh for the next two years. You might end up paying slightly more than the variable rate on a good day - but you also won't get a nasty surprise on a bad one.
UK Airlines Are Mostly In Decent Shape
Here's the good news for anyone flying from the UK to Orlando this year. British Airways and its parent company IAG entered 2026 with 62% of its expected fuel costs for the year already hedged, according to its latest earnings report published in February 2026.
TUI also confirmed in its full-year results that it maintains a strategy of hedging the majority of its jet fuel requirements for future seasons - giving it similar protection to other UK carriers against the current price surge.
Virgin Atlantic has also maintained hedging positions, though the airline has still increased its carrier-imposed surcharges for new bookings in response to external cost pressures (reports ITV) - which is worth bearing in mind if you're booking now.Worth noting if you're flying with Norse Atlantic - the budget carrier that operates from London Gatwick to Orlando - Norse has confirmed it has no fuel hedging arrangements in place whatsoever, leaving it fully exposed to the current price surge. That doesn't mean your flight will be cancelled, but it does mean Norse is in a more vulnerable position than British Airways or Virgin Atlantic if fuel prices remain elevated for an extended period. It's also why they're often cheaper when jet fuel prices are low - they take the same risk approach as US carriers (as we'll explain shortly).
EasyJet (for those flying to Disneyland Paris), meanwhile, had hedged 84% (reports Reuters - via RTE) of its fuel needs for the first half of 2026 and 62% for the second half, at fixed rates agreed well before the current price surge.
Check out the latest official Disneyland Paris offers for Brits ↓
📅 Search Cheapest Disneyland Paris Dates
🚝 Disneyland Paris Transport Package Offers
🏰 Disneyland Paris Hotel+Ticket Package Offers
Flying With a US Airline? The Outlook Is Worse
If you're flying to Florida with a US airline like American Airlines, the outlook isn't as rosy. If you've seen headlines about flight cancellations, you'll notice they are mostly not about British carriers. Major US airlines currently have minimal fuel hedging in place, leaving them almost entirely exposed to the current price surge.
Why Don't US Airlines Hedge Like UK Ones Do?
US airlines have historically viewed fuel hedging as unfavourable. When oil prices crashed in 2014 and again in 2020, airlines that had locked in fuel at higher prices ended up paying well over the odds for years, while their unhedged competitors benefited from cheap fuel. The broader US airline industry view has been that hedging is an expensive gamble that doesn't always pay off, and that it's better to absorb short-term fuel shocks through fare increases and capacity cuts than to pay premium prices for financial instruments that might not be needed. It's a strategy that works perfectly well in stable times - but not so in unstable times.
UK airlines have generally taken the opposite view - that the certainty of knowing your fuel costs in advance is worth paying a small premium for, particularly when you're operating on thin margins and selling seats months ahead of departure. When you've already sold someone a ticket to Orlando in July, the last thing you want is to find out in March that your fuel bill has doubled. UK airlines, depending on their operating structure, also carry currency risk on top of all this - they're taking payments in GBP but jet fuel is priced in USD, which adds another layer of cost uncertainty when operating flights.
So Will Your Flights Be Cancelled?
The cancellation headlines making the rounds are largely from airlines who do not hedge or hedge very little of their fuel costs. For UK travellers flying to Florida with British Airways or Virgin Atlantic, cancellations due to fuel costs alone are not an imminent concern. Both airlines carry sufficient hedging cover to absorb the current shock without needing to pull capacity.
What you might notice, however, is surcharges. Virgin Atlantic has already updated its carrier-imposed surcharges for flights booking now. Airlines won't always put prices up across the board - increasingly, they reduce the number of cheaper seats available on a flight rather than raising headline fares.
Don't worry though, if you've already booked, you should be safe. Virgin Atlantic's terms and conditions state: If any surcharges, fees or charges (other than those imposed by a government) are introduced, increased or decreased after you have made your booking but before you have started your journey, these will not be passed to you or refunded.
Don't miss out on the latest Walt Disney World package offers for Brits ↓
🏰 View Walt Disney World Package Offers
🎟️ View Walt Disney World Ticket Offers
What If You Haven't Booked Yet?
If you're planning a Florida Disney trip (which let's face it, we always are), the broad consensus from industry analysts is that you're in a better position than you might think - at least compared to US travellers. UK carriers' hedging strategies mean the upcoming schedule is unlikely to be dramatically disrupted. For late 2026 and into 2027, there is more uncertainty. British Airways' hedging cover drops to around 50% by Q4, meaning the airline will be buying a greater proportion of its fuel at whatever price the market dictates by then. If oil prices stay elevated, that will eventually be felt in fares - or, in a worst case, in reduced flight frequency on certain routes.
The practical advice is fairly straightforward: if you have a Florida trip coming up this summer and you're already booked, don't lose sleep over it. If you're planning for later in the year and haven't locked anything in, doing so sooner rather than later is probably wise - not necessarily because of cancellation risk, but because the fares available now are almost certainly better than what you'll find in six months' time.
