Here Come the Surges in Airline Fuel Cost

Fuel Cost Q2 2025 $2.21 per gal

Fuel Cost Q1 2026 $2.78 per gal

Fuel Cost Q2 2026 $3.66 per gal

 Delta Air Lines ($DAL) filed its Q2 2026 earnings statement on Friday, and we all know what that means: an opportunity to see just how ugly airlines’ fuel expenses are these days. Prepare for a rapid ascent, readers. 

All major airlines report fuel costs — both their total fuel expense for the quarter and average cost per gallon — as individual items on the earnings release. Calcbench tracks those disclosures, so with a few quick keystrokes we can see how soaring energy prices from the war in Iran this spring surged through the airlines’ financial reporting. 

Figure 1, below, shows average cost per gallon for the six major U.S. airlines since the start of 2024. Right now we only have Q2 numbers from Delta — but just look at that upward spike!

Just for giggles, we calculated the angle of that Q2 upward spike. It’s roughly 76.5 degrees. Now imagine the fastest, steepest take-off you’ve ever experienced on a plane, one where your stomach slid into your shoes. At most, that ascent would be only 15 degrees. So that gives you a sense of how fast fuel costs were accelerating for Delta this spring — and Delta is among the better managers of fuel costs because it owns its own refinery, which Delta estimates shaved off about 5 cents of cost per gallon.  

We will have an updated fuel cost chart at the end of July once the other five airlines file their earnings statements. Meanwhile, marvel at what’s happening here.

Other Performance Metrics

The fuel costs were the buzzkill for Delta’s Q2 performance. Revenue actually rose 18.7 percent from the year-ago period, to $19.76 billion; and the crucial metric known as TRASM (total revenue per available seat mile) jumped 17 percent, from 24.11 cents one year ago to 25.11 cents today. So far, so good.

But total fuel costs rose a whopping 67 percent, from $2.46 billion to $4.11 billion. Operating income then tumbled 11.3 percent to $1.86 billion, and net income dropped 24.7 percent to $1.6 billion — but hey, those numbers are still in black ink, which is better than the alternative.

Delta executives did say in the earnings release that they expect Q3 to improve, with EPS at $2.00 to $2.50 on an operating margin of 11 to 13 percent. But then came this:

"Non‑fuel unit cost performance is expected to improve modestly from the June quarter with further progression in the December quarter as capacity growth begins to normalize. This puts us back on a path toward our long-term framework of low-single-digit non-fuel unit cost growth."

We’d love that prediction to come true, but given the renewed hostilities with Iran this week, perhaps it won’t. Calcbench doesn’t know what that might mean for future performance, but we have all the airline data you need to make your own models. 

The good news for Calcbench subscribers is that you can quickly obtain all these non-GAAP disclosures by downloading our airlines template from DropBox. That template tracks all the major airlines and disclosures automatically, so the information is at your fingertips within minutes of the airline filing its latest earnings report. 

(Disclosure of our own: The template won’t work automatically unless you (a) are a Calcbench premium subscriber; and (b) have our Excel Add-In already installed. If you need help with either of those things, email us at us@calcbench.com any time.)