Warren Buffett Once Said Airlines Were 'A Bottomless Pit' But Berkshire Hathaway Just Invested in Delta—What's Changed?

Key Takeaways

• Berkshire Hathaway added a new, $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.

• Warren Buffett, who headed Berkshire for six decades before stepping down at the end of 2025, often said airlines were a bad investment.

Warren Buffett famously thought investing in airlines was a bad idea after getting burned. Berkshire Hathaway investors undoubtedly hope Greg Abel has better luck.

A regulatory filing Friday showed Berkshire (BRK.A, BRK.B) added a new, $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines (DAL) in the first quarter, its first under Abel since the 95-year-old Buffett stepped down as CEO at the end of last year after six decades at the helm of the conglomerate.

Although Buffett has said he is still involved in investment decisions at Berkshire, purchasing 39.8 million shares of Delta would raise eyebrows, especially given his past history of investing in airlines. (Berkshire declined to comment on how much input, if any, Buffett had on its investment decision.)

As far back as its 1996 letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote, “When Richard Branson, the wealthy owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, was asked how to become a millionaire, he had a quick answer: ‘There’s really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.'”

In his 2007 shareholder letter, Buffett said, “Investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it. And I, to my shame, participated in this foolishness when I had Berkshire buy U.S. Air preferred stock in 1989. As the ink was drying on our check, the company went into a tailspin, and before long our preferred dividend was no longer being paid.” (US Airways ultimately merged with American Airlines (AAL) in 2013 and disappeared as a brand two years later.)

In that same letter, Buffett wrote of the airline industry that “a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”

The lesson didn’t stick. Starting in 2016, Berkshire bought sizable stakes in American, Delta, Southwest Airlines (LUV), and United Airlines Group (UAL), then sold all of them during the COVID-19 collapse in 2020 at a multibillion-dollar loss.

Given that Berkshire is sitting on a massive cash hoard—it rose to a record $397.38 billion in the first quarter—and that Delta made $5 billion in profit in fiscal 2025, Berkshire executives evidently determined that the timing was right to invest in the carrier.

Still, Delta—like its chief U.S. rivals—once again lost money flying passengers last year, registering a lower passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) than cost per available seat mile (CASM), and was off to a bad start through the first quarter of this year.

Delta shares closed near unchanged on Monday and have only gained 1% in 2026, a tough one for the airline industry amid soaring jet fuel prices.

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