What jet fuel costs: the world and Russia

Where the difference comes from: the journey of a tonne of jet fuel

Spot is the wholesale price for lots of thousands of tonnes. The calculator's benchmark is the US Gulf Coast spot (USGC), published daily by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA)⁴. The into-plane price is what an airline pays for a tonne in the aircraft's tank: delivery, storage, the services of the airport's into-plane fuel supplier (in Russia, the TZK) and taxes are added to the spot. This is the price a flight has to be costed at.

Jet fuel is not crude oil. The gap between the price of jet fuel and crude (the crack spread, the “refining margin”) stayed at about $10–20 a barrel until 2021, but reached $60–90 in 2022 and again in 2026: in a crisis jet fuel gets dearer faster than crude (IATA Jet Fuel Price Monitor chart based on S&P Global Platts data). That is why the calculator takes the price of jet fuel itself rather than deriving it from crude.

On international flights fuel is untaxed almost everywhere; domestic flights can carry taxes (India: a state tax of 1–29 % and an excise of 11 %^9,10); in the EU the mandatory 2 % blend of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) adds about 4 % to the price¹¹. In Russia the price is set on the exchange in roubles, and the state returns part of it to airlines through the damper — Russia's fuel price compensation mechanism: a tax deduction that depends on the gap between the domestic and the export price^12,13.

What airlines pay in different regions

Multiplier of the into-plane price to the US spot: dot — estimate, line — range. Blue — backed by statistics, orange — a single data point or an assumption. For Russia — September 2026; the hollow circle — after the damper refund.

How it looks over time

Price of a tonne in the tank: the US spot multiplied by the multiplier of the cheapest region, the average and the most expensive one. The right-hand point is “today” (September 2026, 1,355 USD/t on the spot): it is the dot in the chart above. The lines are the spot times a constant multiplier: no actual series of into-plane prices by region is publicly available. The chart's scale follows the currency switch.

The global shock of March 2026 (the spot nearly doubled in a month¹⁴) moves all regions together — the multiplier to the spot changes less than the spot itself. So the calculator needs a fresh spot and a constant regional multiplier, not the price at every airport. Russia is the exception: its price hardly depends on the spot, and in 2026 the damper ranged from 0 to 58 thousand roubles per tonne^8,13, so Russia needs its own monthly series.

But the multiplier is not constant either. According to the IATA Fuel Monitor chart (Platts data), regional spot prices relative to North America stayed within ±5–9 % before the shock (Middle East ×0.91, Asia ×0.94, Europe ×0.99); in March–April 2026 the regions swapped places — Asia and Europe went to +10–24 % — and now Europe is ×1.05, Asia ×0.92, the Middle East ×0.88. A constant multiplier is off by a few per cent in calm times and by up to 20 % in a shock. IATA does not publish the regional series, only the chart and the weekly figure: the latest global average is $196.70/bbl¹⁵. The regional figures were read off the chart (accuracy ±2–3 $/bbl) for this check only; the series itself is Platts' property and is not reproduced here.¹⁵

Table for the calculation

The flight column shows how much the region adds to or takes off the US-price calculation for the same flight (4.5 t of fuel). Russia — before the damper; after the refund the flight is cheaper than at the US price.

What we change in the calculator

1. ✓ Built into the calculatorFuel price = USGC spot × multiplier of the departure airport's region (table above; decision 235). The multiplier shows as its own step in the calculation breakdown, with its confidence; at low confidence the add-on above the spot counts towards the “made-up” share. The spot is updated as before, the multipliers whenever this article is rebuilt.
2. ✓ Built into the calculatorRussia by airport group — Centre, Siberia, Far East, each with its own TZK mark-up and fee (September 2026 price lists, without the damper); since 9 Nov 2026 applied to the exchange price of its own month (item below). The Urals and the south are priced as the Centre for now.
3. ✓ Built into the calculatorThe damper (decision 236): for a Russian carrier fuelling in Russia, the fuel price is reduced by the damper of the latest published month and the excise refund (2,800 RUB/t × 1.08 = 3,024 RUB/t) — as a separate step in the breakdown showing the price with and without it. The values are Reuters' calculation under the Tax Code formula, whose input — export quotes — is not public. The update agent adds each new month.
4. ✓ Built into the calculatorIndia, domestic flights (decision 236): IOCL's price for domestic airlines in Delhi (with 11 % excise and VAT) is converted to the state of the departure airport through its VAT — from 1 % (Uttar Pradesh, Kerala) to 25–29 % (West Bengal, Tamil Nadu); the reduced rates of Delhi and Maharashtra (7 %) run until mid-November 2026. International flights — without VAT and excise, at the regional multiplier.
5. ✓ Built into the calculatorThe multiplier moves with the regional spot (decision 236): each region's multiplier is tied to the date of its data point, and with a fresh ratio of the regional spot to North America (digitised from the weekly IATA Fuel Monitor chart) the calculator applies the shift: Europe is now ×1.19 instead of ×1.10, India ×1.39 instead of ×1.47. The series itself is Platts data: it is used in the calculation but not published; without it — the constant multiplier from the table.
6. ✓ Built into the calculatorOpen series instead of a single point (plan item fuel-regions, 9 Nov 2026): where an official monthly series exists, it takes precedence over the table multiplier and the Platts shift. US — airlines' cost per gallon from BTS monthly releases (Form 41 P-12(a)) against the USGC average of that and the previous month, median of three months: ×1.04 now instead of ×1.08. Russia — the monthly average TS-1 exchange price excl. VAT with the airport group's TZK mark-up, not tied to USGC: in March 2026 the Centre is 0.88 EUR/kg instead of 1.49 by the multiplier, before the damper. An agent adds new months. Europe, the Middle East and Asia have no open series — the table multiplier applies there.
7. ◷ Queued for the calculatorIndia, IOCL international prices — no recent ones (July–October 2026) are public; the multiplier for now.
8. ⚑ Mind when entering dataYour own price. If you know your contract into-plane price, enter it manually (EUR per kg, with all add-ons, excl. VAT): it replaces the calculation. The damper is not applied to your own price — subtract it yourself. A foreign carrier in Russia does not receive the damper: set this in the charge conditions (operator — foreign).

To be frank: outside the US the multipliers rest on a single data point or an assumption. That is more accurate than one US price for the whole world, but every number is flagged and can be replaced with your own.

How it was checked

Two researchers kept search logs with verbatim quotes (trace/); separate agents opened every source and checked the quotes: world — 71 found, 1 partly, 0 not found; Russia — 83, 0, 0 (verify/). The check corrected the multipliers for Europe and the Middle East (the researcher's ×1.12 and ×1.0 rested on assumptions) and the Russian part: the exchange price includes VAT (later confirmed by the project owner from exchange data), so its comparison with the world price and the TZK mark-ups were recalculated.

What would raise confidence

• The IATA Jet Fuel Price Monitor series by region for 2023–2026 — would test how stable the multipliers are over time.
• TZK price lists of major Russian airports (Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Pulkovo, Sochi, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk) — would replace the group mark-ups with airport prices: Rosaviatsia no longer publishes the summary table.