You need to look a little deeper in to the burn rate of DAL's cash. First we are spending 100's of millions of dollars on capital improvements through out the system. That adds to our burn rate. It is not just fuel. We are making the improvements needed to become a global airline. Nuf said. It is a short term cash expenditure to reap a long term gain.
Yes, we cannot keep this up long term, but the fact is that our execs are not too worried about it.