Airline oil

Here's something that's been troubling me. Airlines have been complaining lately about the spike in oil prices, and talking about fuel surcharges. Haven't they been hedging -- buying oil futures or derivatives based on the price of oil? If not, why not? Without hedging, the airlines are actually speculating on the price of oil, since they know they're going to be buyers. Since they probably don't have inside information on where oil prices are headed, this would seem to be questionable.

Here's some possible explanations:

--Airlines think they'll be able to charge customers for price rises, but not for oil hedging and derivatives as a regular course of business. This assumes that they don't have to worry about their competitors defecting from the cartel.

--The post-Enron fallout has left airlines and others gun-shy about derivatives.

--Managers get rewarded for profits (including those from falling oil prices) but don't get punished for oil-price-induced losses, as long as they're compared with the rest of the industry. (This suggests a possible problem with industry-indexed stock options.)

--I'm missing something.