One of Europe’s biggest airlines says the Iran war is making people delay booking vacations

• Due to the uncertainty caused by the Iran war, people are booking their summer holidays for later.

• “What we’re seeing is a trend towards ‘wait and see,'” an executive at airline Wizz Air told Business Insider.

• The budget carrier’s CEO also said he did not expect the widely feared jet fuel shortage to affect Europe.

Travelers stand back and summer holiday flight booking Later due to the Iran war, but the appetite is still strong.

“We initially saw some uncertainty in April, but now we’re seeing that pick up a bit and people are booking later,” Yvonne Moynihan said. Wizz Air‘s UK chief executive told Business Insider on Monday.

“So we see the trend being ‘wait and see’,” he added.

Wizz is a budget airline headquartered in Hungary and serving more than 200 destinations in Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. It carried more than 63 million passengers in the last financial year, making it Europe’s third largest budget carrier after Ryanair and easyJet.

Last month, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary He said that while bookings to the Middle East have fallen, there has been a “huge increase in bookings for short-haul airlines in Europe.”

Moynihan said Wizz has also seen this trend, with trips to Spain being particularly popular. For this year’s summer season the airline has launched seven new routes to and from London.

In the US, airlines have increased baggage fees and bosses have talked about increasing ticket prices to pass on rising fuel costs to customers.

However, Moynihan said Wizz had lowered prices to stimulate demand.

U.S. airlines are more exposed to rising fuel prices because they are not hedged against fuel costs with financial derivatives. Meanwhile, Wizz has secured 70% of its fuel needs for the summer period.

Wizz’s share price has fallen 33% since the start of the year, making it the second most shorted stock on the London market, according to data from the UK’s financial regulator. The airline warned last month that the Iran war would cost it 50 million euros ($58 million) and had previously expected to make a net profit of up to 25 million euros for the financial year.

On Monday, Wizz said it was well positioned to remain resilient despite the war because it had over £2 billion ($2.7 billion) in cash.

The head of the International Energy Agency said earlier this month that Europe had “maybe six weeks of jet fuel left,” but Wizz CEO József Váradi said: “I don’t think we’ll run out of fuel.”

“We’re not seeing the doomsday scenario that’s been reported,” Moynihan told Business Insider.

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