DAL
Buffett’s old airline scar tissue is fading
Remember when Warren Buffett basically hit the eject button on airlines in 2020? Well, Berkshire seems to be revisiting the scene of the crime. According to the headline here, Greg Abel helped raise Berkshire’s Delta stake by 44%, bringing it to 8.7%.
That’s not pocket change. When Berkshire leans in, the market tends to listen like it just heard the teacher say the quiz is open-book.
Why this matters for Delta
For Delta investors, this kind of move can matter for two reasons:
- It signals that a major long-term investor thinks the airline story still has legs.
- It can nudge sentiment around the whole sector, especially after years of “airlines are too messy” skepticism.
Now, this doesn’t magically change fuel costs, labor expenses, or the fact that flying is still a glorified logistics puzzle with pretzels. But it does suggest Berkshire sees more upside than downside here.
The bigger read-through
If Berkshire is willing to rebuild a position it once abandoned at the bottom of the pandemic, that’s a pretty big psychological shift. Maybe the airline business isn’t everyone’s favorite date night, but it’s still a cash-generating machine when demand holds up.
Big picture: when a legend like Berkshire starts buying back into a sector it once ran from, investors tend to ask the same question — what do they see that everyone else is missing?