Depreciation expense for 2014 was $1.7B. That's all a non-cash expense.

United ended 2014 with about $5.7B in cash.

The problem is that we have heavy cash expenditures with aircraft purchases, so essentially all the cash is being reinvested for new aircraft. Delta is going to start having the same problem as they have a bunch of airplanes on order.

We are simply in a phase where we have a lot of new aircraft coming. The bad news is it hurts our now cash flow. The good news is later years we will have really high non-cash expenses (depreciation) so we will cash flow much better.

All of this is meaningless. There are only 4 domestic airlines. Our $1.9B 2014 profit was more than SWAs 1.14 B. None of those 4 airlines are going anywhere. At least not before I retire.

Could we do better, yes. But if we lost $1B last year, and everyone else lost $2B, you'd all be thrilled!

Sort of like the saying "The happier woman is the one who's husband earns more than her sister's husband."