Skift Airline Weekly Lounge

American Airlines doesn’t hedge its jet fuel, and now it’s enjoying the fruits of that somewhat contrarian strategy. Is AA onto something here? Is fuel hedging a smart play? Will other airlines mimic AA and reject hedging altogether? Those are some of the questions I ask Seth Kaplan in our second episode of The Airline Weekly Lounge. Also, while AA was on the right side of the fuel hedge bet, Air France/KLM was on the wrong side. The company was also on the wrong side of the euro-dollar bet and those two forces combined to further punish the already-limping airline pair. Back in America, Spirit Airlines had a great quarter by its own standards—but mediocre by its standards. Part of its difficulty was due to a softening revenue picture. Is such heated competition in the U.S. a surprise so soon after consolidation and with high oil prices such a recent memory? Lastly, we discuss WestJet, the subject of this week’s Airline Weekly’s cover story. The Canadian airline is clearly not afraid to changes its business