Airlines are feeling the strain of swelling oil prices resulting from the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz. To deal with higher operating costs, many companies are making changes that shift the burden to consumers, including higher baggage fees, more fuel surcharges and canceled routes.

How are higher gas costs affecting airlines? 
Airlines and their customers across the U.S. are impacted but especially those based in four major hubs: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City. In these locations, the average price for a gallon of jet fuel is currently $4.81, according to the aviation trade association Airlines for America. Airlines are also “facing an increase in the amount of fuel their aircraft use because of extra miles required to avoid flying over the conflict zone,” said The Guardian.

How are airlines adapting?
Many are adding “extra fees and surcharges onto already rising ticket prices,” said The New York Times. Delta and Southwest announced they would “start charging $10 more to check a bag on U.S. domestic flights,” days after United and JetBlue said the same. Some airlines are also including pricing for the fuel itself. Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJet, announced it would “add fuel surcharges of up to 60 Canadian dollars, or about $43, to some flights.”

Airlines are also cutting the number of places they go. Several Asian airlines have stated they would “cut flights to mitigate fuel shortages and mounting costs,” said Business Insider. Ryanair, Europe’s largest carrier, is also “considering reducing routes,” while Lufthansa could ground up to 40 planes. Air New Zealand will “cut about 5% of its flights, or about 1,100, at the start of May,” and in the U.S., United and Delta are both cutting routes.
 
ACI Europe, an association representing airports in the European Union, notes the fuel shortages could “hit within three weeks, disrupting summer travel and ‘significantly’ harming the European economy,” said CNBC. For people who still want to fly, experts say “flexibility and careful planning can help offset these costs,” said The Associated Press, and “fare-tracking sites can alert travelers to price changes.”

The Department of Justice has opened a probe into the National Football League, exploring whether the sports juggernaut engaged in anticompetitive practices through the streaming packages it offers viewers. And while the league’s subscription structures may represent a legally actionable transgression, the DOJ’s investigation does not exist in a bubble. It follows years of hostility between the president and the NFL.

‘Fragmented viewing experience’
The Justice Department is investigating whether the NFL’s “deals with streaming services are leading fans to pay too much to watch pro football on TV,” said NPR. The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 permitted the league to let teams “negotiate for the media rights together,” but critics argue that more regulation may be necessary, as “this isn’t the same marketplace anymore.” 

The rising costs of airing high-profile events are being “propelled in part” by demand from “deep-pocketed tech companies hoping to woo subscribers and advertisers,” said The Wall Street Journal. To meet that demand, the NFL has “increasingly sliced off smaller packages of games” for individual streaming services, resulting in a “more fragmented viewing experience” for consumers.

The NFL suspects the Murdoch family, who owns Fox Corporation, is the “key driver behind the DOJ probe,” said ESPN. This comes amid a “growing bipartisan anti-streaming sentiment in Washington.”

‘Revenge tour’
Trump has a “long history” of “weighing in on the fortunes of football,” said The Independent. He condemned former quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem and demanded the Washington Commanders return to their racially insensitive original name. But Trump’s “grievance” with the league “stretches back further, to at least 1984,” when he unsuccessfully attempted to launch a new franchise for the sport.

Trump has “tried to get into the NFL a couple times since then” — defeats that now fuel the president’s “revenge tour,” said Above the Law. The “difference” between federal officials moving against the Sports Broadcasting Act now and Trump’s other NFL tangles is that there are Democrats “aligned with the Department of Justice,” said ESPN. Congress could further regulate NFL viewing options, but “fans might not notice any significant difference to the way they watch games anytime soon.”

The world’s oldest gorilla living in captivity enjoys a cherry tomato as she celebrates her 69th birthday today at the Berlin Zoo. Fatou, whose species rarely exceeds the age of 50, was born in West Africa and taken to France by a sailor before being acquired in 1959 by Germany.
Markus Schreiber / AP Photo

The majesty of the natural world and the incomprehensible vastness of space are almost infinitely rearrangeable variables for documentarians. These television series explore the landscapes, creatures and philosophical underpinnings of both the known and the unknown. 

‘Cosmos’ (1980)
This documentary leans heavily on the charisma of its presenter, astronomer and public intellectual Carl Sagan. It tackles everything from the Cambrian explosion to the nature of time and space, presenting a plea for people to take care of the planet while acknowledging our relative insignificance in the context of the universe. It “should be on the science curriculum of every school,” said The Guardian. (Internet Archive)

‘Frozen Planet’ (2011)
The forbidding landscapes and wildlife of the polar regions star in this BBC series (pictured above), narrated by David Attenborough for the BBC and Alec Baldwin in the American cut. The documentary is full of observations about the critical importance of the region to the Earth’s health — like the fact that a third of the trees on the planet exist in the Taiga — and reveals a “world few people will ever see,” said the Los Angeles Times. (HBO Max)

‘Our Planet’ (2019-23)
Attenborough also narrates this Netflix production about habitat loss and the consequences of human encroachment on the natural world. It traverses locales from the Congolese rainforest to the Arctic, where polar bears are struggling to adapt to climate change. A series that “plays notes of an elegy,” it also “contains the saddest scene” from a nature documentary, in which walruses are “forced onto a tiny stretch of dry land due to the shrinking sea ice,” said Vox. (Netflix)