Fuel bill clips wings at Ryanair

Events, as former British prime minister Harold Macmillan once quipped, are what politicians fear most.

And few enterprises are as susceptible to events as airlines. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, half a dozen airlines in the US and Europe went bankrupt. Five years on, in 2006, oil is the ‘‘event’’.

The weekly jet fuel monitor published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows average prices this year ...