America West, Southwest, Delta Air Lines Inc, and US Airways were among the airlines that began hedging this year when fuel prices started declining.
"Some of them will be disadvantaged a little bit because of aggressive hedging, but the goal is to average it out over the cycle," said Mark Ray, the managing director of the fixed-income transportation portfolio at John Hancock Financial Services Inc.
"Stability and predictability is what they're after."
Continental Airlines Inc is one airline that wasn't hedging fuel costs as of last month and was relying more on lowering costs by retiring older aircraft and replacing them with newer, more fuel-efficient planes.
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