A few weeks ago, prompted by our astute friend Tom Tankka, and anticipating the imminent climax of crude oil-mania, we suggested staking out bullish positions in the airline stocks. At the time, we expected the carriers’ shares to soar above all others if and when oil prices broke. This is in fact what happened: The price of a barrel of crude fell by 25% in the last two weeks, causing most airline stocks to double or more in price. As a result, anyone who had bought out-of-the-money call options a few weeks ago would now be sitting on profits of at least 400%. To take one example, before the shares of American Airlines took off in mid-July from a low of around $4, you could have bought August 5 calls for 50 cents; last week those calls traded as high as $5.60.