ANALYSIS - Oil decline erodes airline fuel hedge value

(Makes clear in paragraph 12 that the accounting losses included all top airlines)

By Kyle Peterson

CHICAGO, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Major U.S. airlines are cheering the jaw-dropping decline in fuel prices, but at the same time are wincing that some of the insurance they bought to hedge against fuel spikes seems to have been a waste of money.

To some degree, top carriers all are struggling to blunt the impact of potential fuel price rallies without losing money on hedges if fuel falls more than expected.

Worthless fuel hedges led to huge accounting losses for major airlines in the third quarter. It is likely to happen again in the fourth quarter and could repeat in 2009 because airlines buy their hedges months in advance.

"They were entered into in the second and third quarter when it looked like the sky was the limit (for fuel prices)," said airline consultant Robert Mann. "It certainly did appear that way at the time."

"To the extent that they can't lay (the hedges) off somewhere they're going to have to take some write-downs," Mann said.

He was quick to add, however, that the benefit of cheaper spot market fuel far outweighs the disadvantage of bad hedges.

Southwest Airlines (LUV.N: Quote, Profile, Research), for example, enjoyed more than $4 billion in hedging proceeds over the last five years and paid far less than rivals because it locked in lower fuel prices while rivals went unhedged.