Some quick googling leads me to the fact that EK did in fact hedge fuel costs before 2009 and got massively burnt after the financial crisis - they took a hit, on their reports and balance sheets, of 429M USD in financial year 2008-09. That nearly wiped out all profits the year, compressing margin to 1.5% from 10% the year before. They didn't then reinstitute the program.

It will be interesting to see how this 4 billion claim is derived, or if it comes from the same box as the 40 billion