Airlines Feeling the Burn on Fuel
All six major U.S. airlines have now filed their first-quarter earnings releases, and to exactly zero surprise, all six reported sharply higher fuel costs that pummeled their operating costs. Casual observers of the industry might wonder, “OK, that stinks; but don’t these guys offset price spikes through hedging instruments?” Users of Calcbench, however, will already know the answer: no, they don’t , and the airlines are likely to suffer with painfully high fuel costs for quite some time. Figure 1 maps out the average cost per gallon for the six largest U.S. airlines for the last nine quarters. Figure 2 shows total fuel expense as a percentage of total operating revenue. The spikes we see for Q1 2026 in both charts are no surprise; average cost of jet fuel per gallon has more than doubled since war began. Figure 2, however, shows us that some firms are feeling that price pressure much more than others. JetBlue ($JBLU) and Alaska Air ($ALK), for exampl...