The European Commission's May 8 guidance held into Friday: airlines selling tickets in the European Union cannot retroactively add a fuel surcharge to a booking after the passenger has paid. The carrier-by-carrier picture the paper's May 21 standard named is unchanged: Lufthansa has grounded at least 20,000 summer departures and parked 27 short-haul aircraft; Air France-KLM is adding €50 to new long-haul round trips; SunExpress and Volotea added €10–€14 to new tickets. Jet2, Ryanair, easyJet, and Tui are still pledging no surcharge on already-booked summer travel. [1][2][3]

The plain-English version of "fuel passthrough": when refiners charge more for jet kerosene, airlines have two choices — absorb the cost (the hedge) or raise the ticket price (the passthrough). The Hormuz disruption has pushed European jet fuel up enough that some carriers are doing both: passthrough on new bookings, hedge on the booked seats. The Commission's ruling closes the third door — billing an extra fee against a ticket the passenger already paid for — that the Spanish low-cost Volotea had been opening with up to €14 in retroactive charges. The EU consumer organisation Facua had asked for an investigation. [1][2]

IATA director-general Willie Walsh's "inevitable" line still anchors the trade-body picture; the December 2025 IATA forecast of 2026 fuel falling 2.4% on a $62-per-barrel Brent assumption is no longer load-bearing. [4]

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels