There were two dominant themes in the U.S. airline business during the opening quarter of 2018: 1) Demand was red hot, and 2) Fuel prices were way up. Unfortunately, trend two was stronger than trend one, which meant all of the country’s mainline airlines except one saw their operating profit margins decline y/y despite this year’s helpful presence of Easter demand. The one exception was Southwest, whose y/y result was flat, but mostly because of all the money it lost on wrong-way fuel hedges a year ago. SkyWest, meanwhile, a regional carrier that generates more revenue than even Hawaiian or…
