Maybe, however it seems (some of) the lessons from the recent past have been completely lost on the B-School/analcyst crowd. Higher fuel doesn't always equal the end of hiring or growth. In fact, super cheap fuel, which is great for a while, eventually guarantees a mass influx of ponzi scheme start ups and irresponsible growth across the board. A lot of bacon was saved in the not too distant past by higher fuel costs which significantly narrow the gap between the cut throat ULCC's and the legacies (and even the regular LCC's) above them.

Bye bye Skybus was just one example. If oil was stuck in the uber cheap 30's they'd probably still be around with 100-300 more plane's worth of capacity barfed all over the system, and the higher paying airlines would likely have yielded to them. Even among legacies, higher fuel helps reign in knee jerk ASM growth. Periodic spikes are actually very beneficial all around.