Jet fuel prices are falling so why is your plane ticket still so expensive,the answer is a stand off between airlines.

When the Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz in February, jet fuel prices roughly doubled. Since fuel is one of an airline’s biggest costs, carriers worldwide responded fast raising ticket prices and adding fuel surcharges sometimes by as much as a fifth.

Now the conflict has eased and fuel prices are starting to come down but ticket prices,they’re staying put.

Here’s what’s really going on airlines are locked in a stand off nobody wants to be the first to cut prices because the moment one does, it could trigger a race to the bottom a classic tit for tat price war that erodes everyones margins,So instead they’re all holding firm hoping no one blinks and demand is making it easy for them.

In theory higher fares should reduce demand. In practice the industry has been pleasantly surprised by how resilient travellers have been. Many airlines believe they still haven’t hit the ceiling of what people are willing to pay to fly so why cut prices when customers keep booking anyway but this has been a genuinely brutal year for the industry.

The global airline trade body estimates the conflict will cut industry profits in half this year even the fare increases haven’t fully covered the higher fuel costs airlines are still paying and jet fuel, having fallen has already started climbing back up.

The pressure points to watch are the ultra low cost carriers like Ryanair and Wizz and the Gulf airlines still seeing reduced traffic. If any of them break ranks and cut fares others will be forced to follow.

For now passengers are paying higher prices for a simple reason airlines are betting on each other’s discipline. The question is how long that discipline holds before someone finally blinks.