Commercial airlines are businesses and are subject to a multitude of conditions that cause some to fail and others to thrive. It seems to me, however, that in recent times there have been an unusual number of airlines declaring bankruptcy or just shutting down — on many occasions without notice. In 2026 alone there is cause for concern as media reports globally show at least one such occurrence per month.

Veronika Bondarrenko (The Street, ‘Another Airline files for bankruptcy and cancels flights’), reports on a Swedish charter airline, H-Bird, being declared bankrupt at the end of last year, AlpAvia Charters of Slovenia and Starflite Aviation in Houston, Texas, USA, being shut down by the FAA for alleged falsification of pilot training records, both in March 2026. These were followed by Magnicharters (Mexican), which closed its doors in May 2026, as did Spirit Airlines (US) in the very same month. This represents a very small sample of what is transpiring in the global aviation industry currently.

Occurrences of this nature beg for an explanation of what is causing such failures at a time when world travel reports point to an upsurge of passenger travel using commercial means globally, since the debilitating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global fuel costs are cited as a serious concern of the industry, as also the present US-Israel versus Iran war, which severely disrupted fossil fuel supplies, causing commodity increases, and which seems to be at the crux of the matter.