Does Accounting Influence Finance? The Case of IFRS 9 and Fuel Hedging

Finance does influence accounting, for example it is known that hedge accounting under International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) (2019), IFRS 9 has been more aligned to risk management practice. Although, as commonly held, accounting represents the substance of economic events without modifying them, opportunities offered by a new accounting standard may affect finance strategies. This paper studies how the IASB (2019), IFRS 9 hedge accounting requirements versus IASB (2014), IAS 39 have modified fuel hedging practice for a sample of IFRS airlines. Hedge accounting under the new standard results to have been adopted by a very large proportion of the sample. Its new features of risk component hedges, accounting for time value of option, forward points, or basis spread in other comprehensive income (hereafter, OCI), and simplified effectiveness assessment have been exploited by most of the sampled companies, although a definite explanation as an accounting strategy is only partially disclosed. In a context where fuel cost is one, if not the most significant caption of operating expenses of airlines, IASB (2019), IFRS 9 has provided an incentive to expand the use of fuel hedging, at least for accounting purpose.