War, oil, and an unpaid TSA: The perfect storm of travel chaos feels like the pandemic all over again
A regional war filled with missiles and drones flying overhead has dismantled the Middle Eastern airspace. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil costs skyrocketing. A partial government shutdown has left 50,000 TSA agents working without pay for more than a month. It’s everything, everywhere, all at once, forcing travelers to rethink their plans as the landscape begins to mirror something we’ve experienced a few years earlier during the pandemic.
“It’s a crazy situation,” said Eric Napoli, Chief Legal Officer at AirHelp, the world’s largest flight compensation platform. “Different situations in different places in the world are all convening at once.”
Napoli said that more travelers have been turning to AirHelp in recent months to recover money lost due to flight disruptions. Again, the combination of a war grounding flights and driving up fuel costs, coupled with ongoing conflicts in Mexico, government workers calling out sick after a month and counting of working without pay, and poor weather conditions, has led to a perfect storm that hasn’t been seen since COVID-19 saw the world come to a standstill. Above all, Napoli said, we’re all asking the same question we asked back then: when is it going to end?
“The sensation of the pandemic is similar in the sense that we’re like, okay, we don’t know what just happened,” Napoli told Fortune. “What’s the future going to be? Is this something that’s going to last two weeks, three weeks, a year? Is everything going to change? This is what we don’t know.”
The Iran war is closing airspace and increasing fuel prices
The conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran has effectively shattered the Gulf’s role as a global aviation crossroads. Airlines have grounded or rerouted flights, leaving passengers who booked connections via Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Doha in limbo.
“Economies like Qatar or the Emirates that have really based themselves on being the connecting hub between Europe, the US, and Asia. All that stuff has been frozen,” Napoli said. “Anybody traveling to Asia from the U.S. or Europe suddenly sees major flight disruption. That’s been incredibly frustrating for passengers.”
For those stranded in the Gulf, options are grim. Napoli described scenes of travelers scrambling for alternatives, such as driving for hours to reach operational airports in neighboring countries. “People are all on wait lists for flights, and it’s very touch-and-go,” he said. “From one day to the next, airspace might close.”
Making matters worse is a dramatic spike in fuel costs. Brent crude has surged more than 50% over the past month and is now at $115 a barrel. Jet fuel now averages $157.41 per barrel globally, nearly double industry forecasts for 2026, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). For travelers, that translates directly into sticker shock at checkout. “We see the concern of fuel increases,” said Napoli, who himself has noticed prices jump as he reconsiders a family vacation to Texas from his home in Spain this summer. “Ticket prices will increase astronomically.” Passengers who booked through Gulf carriers months ago at competitive fares now face rebooking on European or American carriers at two or three times the cost, if they can find a seat at all.
The TSA meltdown
While the war plays out abroad, a slow-motion crisis is unfolding at America’s own checkpoints. The partial government shutdown, now entering its 31st day, has forced 50,000 TSA officers to work without pay since Feb. 14. Absenteeism at major hubs like Atlanta, Houston, and New York has surged to approximately 20%. Small airports, officials have warned, could face outright closure if the standoff in Washington continues.
“We’ve had TSA issues: really long lines just to go through security, really long lines at border control,” Napoli said. “All of that has just made travel super frustrating for Americans.”
Data from AirHelp highlights the scope of the disruption. In February 2026, the worst-performing major airports recorded staggering flight disruption rates: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International led the country at 61.8% of flights disrupted, followed by Newark Liberty at 61.0% and O’Hare at 59.1%. New York’s LaGuardia and Ronald Reagan National rounded out the bottom five at 58.7% and 58.2%, respectively. Even the best-performing airports were far from smooth: Salt Lake City International topped that list at a 39.6% disruption rate.
Tourism at risk
The timing couldn’t be worse. The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to kick off across 16 North American host cities, including Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. The LA28 Olympics follow two years later. Both events were expected to deliver billions in tourism revenue to a U.S. travel industry still rebuilding consumer confidence, and as worldwide general sentiment towards the U.S. has hit all-time lows thanks to tariffs and policing efforts.
“Uncertainty is always bad for consumer confidence, and it’s bad for passenger confidence,” Napoli said. “We want people to come to the U.S. for the World Cup. If there’s a fear of really long passport control difficulties, if there are fears of lots of delays and nothing people can do about it, if ticket prices become incredibly expensive, then we won’t see those numbers.”
The consequences extend well beyond the airport. “It won’t just be bad for the event,” Napoli added. “It will be bad for all the businesses that have planned their budgets around it. Hotel occupancy, restaurants: a lot of businesses are really depending on a successful World Cup.”
For now, Napoli says it’s still too early to measure the full fallout of what he calls an “incredibly uncomfortable” moment for the airline industry. Claims, he notes, come in months after disruptions occur, not days. In the meantime, he has his own verdict on how bad things really are. “These things always happen when I’m about to travel,” he said with a laugh. He’s still booking his family vacation anyway.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com