Air travelers are facing a new reality of higher fees, fewer flights and tough choices about whether a trip is worth the cost. The culprit is volatile oil and jet fuel prices that have been swinging since the war in the Middle East started and fighting near the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global oil shipments. Airlines around the world are responding by trimming schedules and raising fees and fares. Experts say budget carriers and the customers who rely on them will feel the pinch first, but even business travelers and front-cabin passengers won't escape higher costs. Relief may not come quickly even if oil prices start to drop, experts warn, because airlines can take months to adjust fares while they wait for energy markets to stabilize.

Airlines have canceled over 9,000 flights across the U.S. since the Federal Aviation Administration ordered flight cuts late last week. The cuts aim to ease demands on short-staffed control towers during the federal government shutdown. On Tuesday, another 1,200 flights were canceled as the FAA increased its target for reducing flights at major airports. Flights are expected to remain disrupted even as the shutdown nears an end, and cancellations are unlikely to ease right away. The pace of airline ticket sales for Thanksgiving travel has slowed as more travelers have reconsidered whether to fly amid all the delays and cancellations.

It's the last day to book a flight on Southwest Airlines without being hit with a fee to check bags after the airline abandoned a decades-long luggage policy. Southwest Airlines will start charging many of its customers a fee to check bags beginning on Wednesday, abandoning a decades-long practice that its executives once described as key to differentiating the budget carrier from its rivals. The airline announced the change in March, saying at the time that the the new policy would start with flights booked on Wednesday.

Aeromexico is the most on-time airline in the world, according to a data company that compiled figures for 2024. Cirium said in its annual ranking released on Thursday that nearly 87% of the Mexican airline's flights were on time in 2024. That puts Aeromexico slightly ahead of Saudi Arabian airline Saudia and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines. Delta was the best-scoring U.S. airline despite a July computer outage that caused thousands of flight cancellations. Canadian airlines WestJet and Air Canada, along with Denver-based budget airline Frontier, were at the bottom of Cirium's rankings among airlines in North America.