Hedging fuel costs sounds confusing, but it's nothing new. Some airlines, like the budget model Southwest, have managed to claim a profit in no small part because their masters were clever enough to buy most of its fuel when it was still sensibly priced. That can work out really well if gas prices go up, because those smart airlines will still be paying an older, lower price. Some experts think Southwest has saved $3.5 billion by doing this since the late '90s.

United Airlines, which has a management as sharp as a box of hammers and aging seating about as soft, thought it could imitate Southwest by getting into the hedging game, too. But, whoops! Timing is everything. It got in way too late, as the market prepared to peak. Prices went down. And right now it's paying almost $13 more a barrel than oil is actually worth, which could rack up as much as $544 million in boneheaded, unnecessary losses.

It's a lot like the guy down the street who bought his house a year ago for $400,000, only to find in this self-correcting market that it's now worth about $250,000, which everyone in the neighborhood knew was a more realistic price all along. He intended to flip it, but now he's got to live in it. Of course, if gas prices go back up a bit, United's loss may be mitigated slightly.

There's something in the air, and as usual, these days, it's a merger. It's looking very likely that Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines are going to combine forces and become one company. "Well, maybe that's not so bad," I thought when I heard the news, since I'm generally an optimistic fellow. "After all, I live near Cincinnati, and the airport here is a big Delta hub. Maybe this will somehow help us get cheaper flights, right? Yeaaaah!"

Not likely, according to John L. Mariotti, the author of the recently released book, The Complexity Crisis: Why Too Many Products, Markets and Customers Are Crippling Your Company--and What to Do About It.

"If Delta and Northwest merge, once again the rules of math apply," says Mariotti, telling me: "When you add two negative numbers, you get a larger negative number."

In other words, Mariotti says that a merger is only a good thing if it improves service and thus, brings more customers. He says this merger isn't going to do that. He predicts, "The business traveler will still have to deal with a large, insensitive, 'spoke and hub' style airline, flying how, when and where they decide to, and will still charge every bit as much as the market will bear."

Well, in a weird way, I guess it's comforting to know that some things in life, we can always count on. For instance, I'm always happy for my luggage, when I've learned that it's traveled to a more exotic destination than I did.

Geoff Williams is a freelance business journalist, primarily for Entrepreneur magazine, and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America.

It's bad being an airline passenger in a coach seat. It's pretty bad as an employee too. Especially if you work for US Airways. Apparently, employees are embarrassed to admit they work for this pathetic excuse of an airline.

US Airways is known far and wide as the worst big airline in America, and it's not hard to see why. Employees are complaining about how bad the planes smell and how dirty they are.

And apparently passengers aren't too thrilled with the pretzels handed out in coach. Wonder why they suck? Because they cost.... get this.... three cents per package. Three cents. That's what you, the hated passenger, are worth. Three cents. So at three cents per package, US Airways isn't too eager to find a supplier with better tasting pretzels, you see.