Oil and a Missed Opportunity!

[Composite Man]

So for the last year the company has been firstly crying over the sky high oil prices and their effect on profitability, then they dived to unexpected lows and they were crying over fuel hedging losses (even though they were only paper losses at that stage).

Now we have NR bleating about rising oil prices and their effect on route profitability.

Two questions. If they can't make the airline break even at $60 a barrell even in relatively difficult economic times what hope have they ever got? Secondly, as this is probably the lowest price we will ever see oil get to in our lifetimes, did they miss a golden opportunity to finally hedge oil at $40 a barrell for a lot of their long term, and some of their short term, requirements?

It seems our management just seem to go from worse to worse.

[Sleeve_of_Wizard]

They're probably hedging it at 60 as we speak........ No hang on, it's CX, they're probably hedging it at 120.

[Loiter1]

You can't just hedge at any price. It takes a counter party to hedge and at the low and high price extremes it would be difficult to find one.

[CodyBlade]

I don't get it:

Oil price high = not making money

Oil price low = not making money

[Ex Cathedra]

You're missing part of the equation:

Oil price high = we're not making any money = we need to cut your salary
Oil price low = we're not making any money = we need to cut your salary

Which, if you know anything about math, can be simplified into the following equation:

Inept management = employees pay the broken pots

[Sqwak7700]

Inept management = employees pay the broken pots

Speak for yourself, I didn't pay ****t. This is why I refuse to subsidize my place of work. We are the employees, we get paid to provide services to them just like passengers pay them to receive a service.

Imagine the shock to managers if passengers demanded to be paid to fly on Cathay? It just wouldn't work and it would not be tolerated for one second.

Why should we treat them any different?