Jet fuel price hits record high
Local airlines are poised to raise ticket prices further after Padma Oil Company this week hiked the price of jet fuel for the 14th time in 18 months.
Jet fuel, also known as aviation turbine fuel, accounts for up to 46 percent of an airline's operational costs.
After the 6 percent hike on Sunday, the price of jet fuel is now Tk 106 per litre, the highest yet. In December 2020, it was Tk 48 a litre.
Fresh rounds of hike are not off the table as the Russia-Ukraine war, which sent the price of oil rocketing to a 14-year high, is raging on.
"We don't produce jet fuel -- we need to import it. Therefore, the local price of jet fuel corresponded to those in the international market," said ABM Azad, chairman of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, whose subsidiary Padma Oil is the lone supplier of jet fuel to airlines.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine comes at a critical time for the airline industry: it was hoping to recover the losses from the pandemic by cashing in on the pent-up demand for travel.
"It's really an ominous sign for our airline industry," said Kamrul Islam, spokesman of US-Bangla Airlines.
The airlines will most definitely pass off the higher fuel prices by raising the airfare, which has doubled in the last year and a half on the domestic route.
The higher fares might change people's minds.
"Under the present circumstances, our survival will be at stake," said Mesbah Ul Islam, head of marketing and sales at Novoair.
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