JetBlue has posted 18 straight quarters of positive earnings, and now that streak could be in jeopardy, due to (even) higher fuel prices brought on by the threat of Hurricane Rita hitting somewhere along the Gulf Coast. Now, we've always been a bit skeptical of consecutive-quarter positive earnings streaks (the numbers usually look too perfect), but JetBlue is an exception -- a well-managed company that doesn't have to resort to a lot of creating accounting tricks to pad the bottom line. Anyway, the CEO of the Queens-based low-fare carrier all but admitted that Hurricane Rita is "going to put the final nail in this quarter..." In the first six months of the year, the five largest U.S. airlines posted $4.8 billion in losses. And there was the ugly bankruptcy at Delta, and so on, and so forth.

Anyway, kudos to JetBlue for resuming scheduled service to New Orleans, starting October 1.