It doesn't matter. Airlines absolutely buy crude futures to hedge against changes in fuel cost. It might be impossible to buy futures in the exact good you need, or it might be too expensive due to illiquidity and slippage.

It's like how beer manufacturers buy aluminum futures even though they almost never take delivery on the futures. They're just going to buy the processed aluminum from their regular processed aluminum supplier, but they can still hedge some of the price changes with the easily available physical aluminum futures.