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Delta Air Lines said it lost $300 million in the month of January, but executives maintained the ailing carrier is making progress in its Chapter 11 recovery bid.

The airline also said it resumed using so-called hedging contracts last month in a bid to avoid new spikes in the cost of jet fuel, which helped drive the company into bankruptcy proceedings last September.

Delta posted its January financial results in a monthly report filed as part of its bankruptcy case.

The airline said it ended the month with $2.1 billion in unrestricted cash, up slightly from December.

"While Delta continued to post significant losses in January, the company is making progress in stabilizing our liquidity and implementing our business plan," Delta's financial chief, Ed Bastian, said in a statement with the report.

He said the airline's renewed ability to enter fuel hedging contracts, which typically require strong credit or cash reserves to negotiate, "is another indication of the progress we are making in our ongoing efforts to strengthen our financial performance."

The airline said it used such contracts to fix the cost of 26 percent of jet fuel burned in February at an average price of $1.75 a gallon. However, the average spot market price for jet fuel in the Southeast also was $1.75, so the February contracts likely didn't save much money.

Like most struggling major carriers, Delta hadn't had the financial strength to set up fuel hedges in the last couple of years.

Delta's January net loss was slightly narrower than its loss of $314 million in January 2005.

But it included $87 million in costs related to its Chapter 11 reorganization, including charges related to renegotiating aircraft and facility leases and attorney and other adviser fees.

Without those charges, Delta's $213 million loss was a substantial improvement from a year earlier.

The airline also said it cut unit costs — excluding fuel — by 5.3 percent compared with a year earlier. But overall unit costs rose 2.7 percent with fuel included.

Delta said unit revenue was up almost 13 percent during the same period, and that it made progress on cutting aircraft rent.

AJC