Berkshire Just Bet $2.65 Billion on the Airline Buffett Swore Off
In 2020, Warren Buffett stood before Berkshire Hathaway shareholders and declared airlines a mistake. The conglomerate sold every share it owned in Delta, American, United, and Southwest — collectively more than $6 billion worth of stock — absorbed the losses, and moved on. “The world has changed for the airlines,” Buffett said. End of story.
Or so everyone thought. Six years later, Berkshire is back — and the position it just disclosed may be one of the more interesting contrarian signals the company has sent in years.
Berkshire’s first 13F filing under new CEO Greg Abel, who officially took the helm from Buffett at the start of 2026, revealed a brand-new $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines. That’s 39.8 million shares, making Delta Berkshire’s 14th-largest holding and giving the conglomerate a 6.1% ownership interest in the Atlanta-based carrier. For context, Berkshire last held Delta before dumping it at a loss during the pandemic panic.
But here’s what Abel appears to understand that the 2020 narrative missed: this is a materially different company than the one Buffett fled. Delta has spent the past several years quietly reengineering its revenue model away from low-margin seat sales and toward durable, high-margin businesses. In Q1 2026, premium products, loyalty programs, American Express remuneration, cargo revenue, and maintenance services for other airlines collectively represented 62% of Delta’s total revenue — and that bucket grew in the mid-teens year over year. In Q4 2025, premium cabin revenue exceeded main cabin revenue for the first time in the company’s history. The airline now looks less like a commodity transporter and more like a brand with a recurring loyalty engine attached to it.
The numbers are backing up the story. Adjusted operating revenue hit a record $14.2 billion in Q1 2026, up 9.4% year over year. Adjusted EPS of $0.64 climbed roughly 40% versus the prior year period. American Express remuneration — cash Delta receives from its co-branded credit card partnership — topped $2 billion for the quarter, up 10%. These are not the economics of a struggling airline.
The headwinds are real and worth acknowledging. Middle East tensions have sent jet fuel prices to roughly double their year-ago levels, and Delta expects more than $2 billion in additional fuel costs in Q2 alone. The company is trimming capacity and pushing through higher fares in response. But Delta has a structural hedge most carriers lack: its Pennsylvania-based Trainer refinery, which converts crude oil into jet fuel in-house and is expected to deliver roughly $300 million in cost relief this quarter alone. That asset becomes more valuable, not less, when oil is elevated.
And then there’s the valuation. With full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $6.50 to $7.50, and the stock trading around $70, Delta fetches roughly 10 times earnings — a steep discount to the broader market. For a business generating over $2 billion annually from a credit card partnership alone, that multiple invites a second look.
The more important signal here may not be Delta specifically, but what the Abel era portends for Berkshire more broadly. This is his first major portfolio overhaul, and the willingness to buy back into an industry his predecessor publicly abandoned — at a historically cheap valuation — suggests the new Berkshire will move differently than the old one. Patient investors who have tracked the conglomerate for decades now have a new set of signals to decode.
