For airlines, hedging the cost of fuel has perhaps never been more important than it is now in the midst of a breathtaking ascent in oil prices. One of the most successful airline hedgers, Southwest , recorded a second quarter profit, while airlines that haven’t hedged so aggressively are getting hit harder by fuel prices. Meanwhile, airlines have taken aim at Congress’s favorite scapegoat for higher oil prices: the speculators. In early July, a coalition of airline CEOs sent a letter to airline customers urging them to contact Congress about cracking down on oil speculation. The letter said that high oil prices were due partly to “normal market forces being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation.” The Air Transport Association (ATA) and the airlines also sponsor the Web site StopOilSpeculationNow.com. “The airline community believes that some $20 to $30 in today’s oil price is due purely to speculation,” says a spokesperson for JetBlue. An ATA spokesperson says that two weeks after the letters and Web campaign started, more than two million messages were sent to Congress about the issue.