With jet fuel prices down roughly $1 per gallon since a June peak, airline analysts offered improved outlooks for U.S. carriers

. Based on current jet fuel prices, JPMorgan's airline equity team Tuesday in an research note wrote that "the industry can achieve annual profitability in 2009, despite a relatively tepid economic climate." The $1 price drop, according to JPMorgan, "represents the single most rapid and significant annualized savings the industry has ever realized--topping $13 billion at current levels ... For comparison purposes, annualized post-9/11 labor cost savings--which took some five years and multiple bankruptcies to achieve--measure slightly less than half of what's been accomplished merely in the past month." UBS analysts similarly improved earnings estimates for U.S. carriers, suggesting that the "fuel price change [is] too big to ignore."