by flagamuffin

Some major U.S. airlines including Delta and Southwest are rushing to finance losing bets on oil and revamp fuel hedges as tumbling crude prices leave them with billions of dollars in losses, according to people familiar with the hedging schemes.

In theory, airlines are among the top beneficiaries of a six-month slump that halved crude prices to five-year lows. Oil is the biggest variable cost for airlines, often representing a third or more of their total operating expenses.

But now, carriers such as Delta Air Lines and even Southwest Airlines, known for a successful hedging program that locked in cheap fuel prices before they rose a decade ago, see some of the benefits of cheap fuel eaten away by hedging costs.

I had been wondering about this -- I read the other day that Ryanair hedged almost all of their fuel costs at ~$92 last year, meaning they haven't profited really at all from the massive decline in oil prices. And that sucks, because with the euro to dollar dropping to almost 1:1.1, I wanna head to fucking Europe this summer.