As Jet Fuel Prices Rose, Southwest Used Panama Canal

Southwest didn't just pay more for jet fuel this spring—it put it on a boat. Facing tight supplies and steeper prices on the West Coast, the airline chartered a ship to haul about 12.6 million gallons of jet fuel from Houston through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles in late May, CFO Tom Doxey told CNBC, something the airline had never done before.

The one-off move amounted to roughly a week's supply for Southwest's West Coast operations "at a time when when supply was most constricted ... when it was most at risk," said Doxey. CNBC notes the West Coast depends more heavily on imports than the rest of the country, and "the situation highlights the fluid nature of fuel costs even between different US states," reports Simple Flying. Southwest says its fuel bill jumped nearly $900 million year-over-year in the second quarter.