Seven months after the Strait of Hormuz closed at the end of February, no major aviation hub anywhere has run dry of jet fuel, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The company's chief industry officer Mike Malik said predictions of grounded fleets and closed airports "have not materialised", with the operational strain falling instead on smaller secondary gateways.

"The warnings when Hormuz closed were of the whole system running dry, of grounded fleets and hub airports closing," Malik said. "That is not what happened. Nearly seven months on, the hubs are still operating. The fuel that went missing went missing from secondary locations. So, in summary the failure is real. It is just not the one that was forecast."

Where has the fuel shortage actually hit?

The distribution shortfall has concentrated at regional airports rather than flag-carrier hubs. Cirium's affected list includes:

• Brindisi (Italy)
• Pescara (Italy)
• Yangon (Myanmar)
• Tahiti (French Polynesia)

Heathrow, Frankfurt and Changi have continued to operate without jet fuel stockouts under Cirium's reading of operational data.

"Shortages hit the smallest airports first," Malik said. "That is why the affected list reads Brindisi, Pescara, Yangon and Tahiti rather than Heathrow, Frankfurt or Changi."

Malik identified the movement of fuel within countries to airport fuel farms as a more pressing bottleneck than cross-border supply. Workers handling these domestic transfers receive less institutional support than those shifting cargoes between nations, he noted.

How have jet fuel prices moved?

IATA's August analysis recorded jet fuel prices rising 8.3% month-on-month and standing 79.2% higher than a year earlier. The price trajectory reflects a sustained premium attached to Middle East crude flows, which account for a significant share of global jet fuel supply.

Despite the cost pressure, air cargo demand has continued to expand. IATA's monthly year-on-year cargo demand growth has run as follows:

• August: +4.4%
• July: +3.9%
• June: +8.5%
• May: +6.0%
• April: +4.0%

The sequence shows a deceleration from the June peak as the initial post-conflict bounce faded, though growth remained in positive territory through August. Carriers continue to levy fuel surcharges to recover part of the cost increase.

What is binding the supply chain?

The data points to a clear distinction between gross availability and last-mile distribution. Bulk jet fuel has remained accessible to the major refining and storage complexes serving intercontinental flows; the failure has occurred in the secondary handling layer that feeds regional airports.

That distinction carries direct operational consequences. Flag-carrier networks anchored on Heathrow, Frankfurt and Changi draw on diversified supply arrangements and multiple fuel-farm operators. Smaller gateways typically rely on single-source trucking or pipeline delivery, leaving them exposed when domestic logistics tighten.

What does this mean for autumn operations?

Cirium's assessment aligns with the demand trajectory published by IATA. Cargo volumes have not contracted in the way that sustained fuel disruption at major hubs would typically produce, and the cost burden has so far translated into surcharges rather than capacity cuts.

Whether the distribution layer holds through the northern hemisphere winter — when fuel demand peaks and logistics strain typically intensifies — will be the next test of a system that has, to this point, outrun the worst forecasts made when the Strait of Hormuz closed.