Ryanair has explained why your 2026 summer holiday flights will not get cancelled due to the jet fuel crisis and closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East.

And the budget airline has gone one further by saying how flights going in to 2027 will also remain unaffected by this, all because of a clever arrangement the Irish business has with its suppliers.

CEO of Ryanair Group, Michael O’Leary explained the matter this morning (18 May) as the business shared its annual results for the 2026 financial year – a year in which they saw passengers grow from 200.2 million to 208.4 million.

Revenue went up alongside this from £13.95 billion to £15.54 billion. So if you wondered where your money went when you get caught with the wrong sized bag, here we are, and that’s before prices potentially rising if baggage rules change.

The inside of a Ryanair plane (Manuel Romano/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Ryanair’s hedged jet fuel avoids Hormuz crisis impact

Ryanair has been clever with its business, doing what is called ‘hedging’ when it comes to its fuel supply.

Long story short, and in layman’s terms, this is where the business has agreed in advance to pay a fixed rate for its fuel.

As it stands, Ryanair has hedged a massive 80 percent of its jet fuel needs up until April 2027. The price? We’re talking $67 a barrel.

On the open market, the price of jet fuel has risen from around $90 per barrel to as high as $200 per barrel, showing just how well insulated Ryanair is from the Iran War and Strait of Hormuz being blockaded. To compare it all to the life we live, it is a bit like agreeing to a fixed mortgage on your house or flat instead of going on a variable rate, where what you pay can change by the month due to interest rate changes.

“Ryanair’s conservative jet-fuel hedging strategy will insulate [Ryanair] earnings in the current very volatile oil markets and widen the cost advantage over EU competitors for the remainder of FY27,” O’Leary said.

Ryanair is going ahead with a normal summer season, it says (Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jet fuel from elsewhere

In his statement on Ryanair’s jet fuel hedging, O’Leary said that the Straight of Hormuz is only one of many avenues to get supply.

“The conflict in the Middle East has created economic uncertainty and we still don’t know when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen,” he said.

“Despite this, Europe remains relatively well supplied with jet-fuel, with significant volumes sourced from West Africa, the Americas and Norway.”

As well as this, Neil Sorahan, Ryanair’s CFO, said he was ‘increasingly confident that we will not see any supply shocks this summer’.

Ryanair’s ‘Armageddon’ preparation is in hand

Despite the calm coming from inside Ryanair, Sorahan admitted that there is always a plan for ‘Armageddon’ despite plans for a fuller operational summer period.

He told CNBC: “Do we have plans for some kind of Armageddon situation? Of course, we do, but I don’t see that coming to pass.

“As things stand, we’re operating a full schedule this summer, and plan to operate a full schedule into the winter period.”

Credits: Ryanair

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With Ryanair basing nine of its 630 aircraft in Malta starting this winter, that means that Ryanair’s Malta base is bigger than the entirety of KM Malta Airlines. Ryanair wants to see KM survive, but he remarked that “old legacy airlines” across Europe with a “high cost-base and high fares” are failing.

The Ryanair CEO said that what needs to be done is for a company like Lufthansa to be encouraged to invest in or acquire KM Malta Airlines. This would provide it with a better long-term partner.

With direct long-haul flights from Malta to New York set to launch in 2026, O’Leary was asked if these new flights may have any effect on Malta Air or Ryanair business, as well as if there is any intention for the airline to go long-haul.

“No,” he replied, though he added that the new flights are a “very welcome development”. Direct access from New York to Malta can only be a benefit to the Maltese economy.

He said that he thinks one of the historic challenges for Malta was the lack of direct flights, which is something that Ryanair has fixed in the last decade. “We’re trying to kind of flatten that visitor curve,” he remarked, as he spoke of how Malta has historically been very busy in the months of June, July, and August, but has lacked throughout the rest of the year.

Asked about protests and movements against over-tourism, O’Leary said that people recognise and welcome tourists in major tourist areas such as Barcelona, Palma, and also Malta. He thinks the real area of contention is that of accommodation, “when locals can’t access apartments and can’t find accommodation for themselves because the owners or landlords are selling it on Airbnb… That causes tension, and that causes friction”.

“I think everybody accepts, even in Malta, that we need more tourism, but we need more tourism in winter… We, together with the tourism authorities and the government, need to continue to grow visitor numbers during the winter, but we recognise that there is a challenge during the summer,” he stated.

O’Leary said that he thinks one of the big problems in summer is cruise ships, which he said “dump thousands of people here for less than one day”.

Asked if he still believes drug use by airline passengers is a problem, he said that objectionable behaviour by passengers is on the rise. He said that Ryanair occasionally has to divert aircraft for safety reasons when the behaviour of some passengers represents a safety threat.

The Ryanair CEO suggested that the amount of alcoholic drinks should be limited to two per passenger before a flight. He remarked that if duty-free purchases are limited, then alcohol consumption can be limited as well.

Credits: Ryanair

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