Keir Starmer says British holidaymakers could be forced to change travel plans
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned that people in Britain may have to change their holiday plans this summer due to the jet fuel crisis brought on by the Middle East war.
The prime minister was speaking during a new interview with Sky News on April 27th, in which he was directly asked to address the impact that the ongoing conflict could have on the public’s travel plans as well as the cost of living.
“We’ll see how long the conflict goes on,” Starmer replied, before adding, “I can see that, if there’s more impact, people might change their habits.”
He said this could include aspects of life such as “where [people] go on holiday this year, what they’re buying in the supermarket, that sort of thing.”
Amid fears of jet fuel and potential food shortages, the prime minister urged the public not to panic over the situation, stating: “We chose not to get involved in this war. That was the right thing to do. But we must protect the British people from the impact of it.”
The Labour leader’s comments come after the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warned that the whole European continent could only have supplies of jet fuel for another “six weeks or so” due to the shortage issues from the Iran war.
As a lack of oil and gas supplies are currently passing through the Strait of Hormuz, Birol warned that it could impact summer holidaymaking as, “I can tell you that soon we will hear the news that some of the flights from city A to city B might be cancelled as a result of a lack of jet fuel.”
To this end, the airline Lufthansa subsequently announced that it will be cutting 20,000 flights from its usual summer schedule, in doing so cutting back on using 40,000 metric tonnes of jet fuel, which they say has doubled in price since the Iran conflict began.
Despite this, Starmer maintained his position by saying, “It is important to say that because we got the economy into a better place, we are better placed to deal with this than we otherwise would have been.”
