I am the first to admit that I truly have no clue. What I do know is that DAL has had hedges go south due to rapid drops in oil prices on numerous occasions the past decade. (To be fair SWA got walloped a few years ago as well).

DAL has long claimed that they don't hedge to time the market but rather have a predictable fuel bill for the budget. Fair enough. But hedging doesn't come for free, and for every buyer and seller who thinks that they have some insights there is a counterpoint who feels the opposite.
I am just curious and nothing more. If we had never hedged since 2000 (as an arbitrary date) would we be better off, the same or worse off in the aggregate over the years?

If the answer is 'better off" or "about the same" then that is an awful lot of time and effort spent on not very much benefit. Sure you will see the quarter where hedging benefitted us well, but it seems there is always another quarter where it bit us.

But I am no expert for sure!