DAL
Berkshire’s new airline crush
Greg Abel’s Berkshire just did something that would’ve made old-school Buffett-watchers raise an eyebrow: it bought a fresh stake in Delta Air Lines. The position was sized at about 39.8 million shares, or roughly $2.6 billion, which is not exactly a “let’s test the waters” kind of move. That’s a full-on cannonball.
Why Delta, and why now?
Delta is the odd airline out in the current Starlink derby. While American Airlines is teaming up with Starlink, Delta chose Amazon’s Leo unit for its Wi‑Fi rollout instead. That put Delta in Elon Musk’s crosshairs, because apparently no major airline decision is complete without a billionaire subtweet battle.
For investors, the takeaway is less about Musk’s latest online grudge and more about what Berkshire is signaling:
- it thinks Delta’s cash flows and brand are sturdy enough to back with real money
- it’s willing to lean into airlines again, a sector Buffett once swore off after getting burned
- it may see Delta as the cleaner long-term bet versus the rest of the pack
The airline drama is real
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. American just got a pop after announcing its Starlink partnership, which is a reminder that passengers do care about fast Wi‑Fi when they’re trapped in a metal tube at 35,000 feet. Delta’s choice to go with Leo could become either a smart long-term platform play or a case of picking the wrong side of the satellite internet arms race.
And yes, you can read a little Buffett-era irony into this: Berkshire spent years avoiding airlines, dumped its old airline bets in 2020, and now Abel is back in the cabin with a billion-dollar-ish new ticket.
Big picture: Berkshire’s Delta buy is a confidence signal, but the market will still judge this airline on the boring stuff that actually matters — margins, demand, fuel costs, and whether its Wi‑Fi strategy looks genius or just annoyingly expensive next year.