每日新闻|美国航空燃油成本飙升

If you're planning to board a real jet this spring break or summer, the plain truth is it's going to be more expensive.

Prices are climbing like the jets themselves.

There are several reasons for this.

One is demand. People want to travel.

The head of Delta Airlines says he's never seen demand ramp up so quickly as it has after the omicron wave of COVID, which hit the U.S. late last year.

Planes are filling up with some flights reportedly carrying as many passengers as they did in 2019 before the pandemic, but most airlines still aren't operating as many flights as they were then.

They're still having trouble finding enough workers and there been some delays in getting new planes delivered.

Also, while more Americans are traveling within the United States for fun, they're not traveling as much for business.

Many people are still working from home as they started doing in 2020, so that's reduced a significant number of airline bookings.

The head of American Airlines suggests COVID rules continue to affect international leisure travel but he says a huge number of people still want to do it

and that if countries remove their restrictions, international bookings could grow back to their 2019 levels by the end of this year.

A big reason why all bookings are getting more expensive though is the cost of jet fuel.

Mirroring the cost of gas, it's taken off over the past year.

What's interesting here is that crude oil prices which factor heavily into the cost of gasoline and jet fuel, they've dropped a little since last week when they hit their highest prices in 13 years.

But fuel costs didn't reflect that right away.

Experts say gas prices rise like rockets but fall like feathers -- meaning, they're quick to increase when oil prices do but they take a while to settle back down after oil prices drop.

For airlines, 20 to 25 percent of their operating expenses come from fuel costs alone.

It's their largest expense after paying their workers.

重点解析：

restriction n. 制规定;限制法规;限制;约束

It was announced that new speed restrictions would be introduced. 

据宣布，将有新的限速规定出台。

如果你打算在今年春假或夏天乘坐一架真正的喷气式飞机，显而易见的事实是，价格将会更贵。

价格就像喷气式飞机一样在攀升。

价格不断攀升的原因有几个。

一个原因是需求。人们想要去旅行。

达美航空公司的负责人表示，在去年晚些时候美国爆发奥密克戎疫情后，他从未见过需求增长得如此之快。

据报道，一些航班的载客量与2019年疫情之前持平，但大多数航空公司的航班数量仍不及当时。

他们仍然难以找到足够的工人，新飞机的交付也出现了一些延误。

此外，虽然越来越多的美国人在美国国内旅行是为了娱乐，但他们出差的次数却没有那么多。

许多人仍然像他们在2020年开始做的那样在家工作，这大大减少了航空公司的机票预订量。

美国航空公司负责人表示，新冠肺炎法规将继续影响国际休闲旅游，但他表示，仍有大量人希望这样做

如果各国取消这些限制，国际预订量可能会在今年年底恢复到2019年的水平。

然而，机票预订变得越来越贵的一个重要原因是航空燃油的成本。

与汽油的价格相呼应，航空燃油价格在过去一年里大幅上涨。

这里有趣的是，原油价格在很大程度上影响了汽油和航空燃料的成本，自上周达到13年来的最高价格以来，原油价格略有下降。

但燃料成本并没有立即反映出这一趋势。

专家们表示，油价涨得像火箭，跌得像羽毛，也就是说，油价上涨时，油价会迅速上涨，但油价下跌后，油价需要一段时间才能稳定下来。

航空公司的运营费用中，仅燃料费用就占20% ~ 25%。

这是他们除支付工人工资外的最大开支。