Ala Kenneth Lay and Enron? Have management rights to a company you're a minority shareholder of and award ridiculous contracts from that company to a company you're a 100 percent shareholder of? Surely not. Hope you're not accusing Swire of being unethical...
It's not even the price CX paid for the hedge. It's the amount they hedged. 60 percent!! CX and most other airlines have traditionally hedged at 20 to 30 percent. The idea is to level off the peaks in price a bit with the trade off being the troughs aren't as deep. But CX decided to remove peaks and troughs and flatline it. And flatline it they did. At a line far higher than the highest peak. Brilliant!!
Added to their other self inflicted woes is the price to be paid for the third runway. A third runway that CX lobbied hard for the government to build, as well as encouraging their staff to join the lobbying efforts. Will be amusing as well as rather ironic if CX now pay their construction share of this white elephant with the 13th month payments of their employees. That might pacify their long suffering shareholders a bit and take their minds off the price of fuel.