Your fuel hedges are expiring. And the ones you still have lose existing value every time oil comes down.
Your mgmt could have used your hedging advantage to build your cash position and grow your airline even more. Instead, they chose to pass your hedging savings on to the average consumer. I'm sure the passenger thanks you for that but such a tactic is going to make it much harder for SW to compete in the future, which will ultimately lead to the slow chipping away of your CBA.
Think I'm wrong? Last year YOUR CEO stated that without fuel hedges, SW would've lost money.
Now's the point where every SW pilot on flightinfo flames me for being envious of their position. Don't waste your effort, that argument has been played out too many times on here already. Time will tell who is right and that time is around the corner.
Regardless, you still have a great airline. SW treats it's employees much better than any of our airlines could even imagine to. I'm not throwing stones at your guys at all, I just think, like many analysts do, that y'all should've used those hedges to your advantage instead of passing the savings along to John Q. Public. Unfortunately, your mgmt's blunder over the past few years will affect us all in that when your contract begins to get concessioned, our mgmts will use that as a benchmark for negotiating ours.
