Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) CEO Greg Abel added 17,510,544 shares of Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) during the second quarter of 2026, lifting Berkshire’s stake to 57,320,000 shares valued at $5,368,591,200 as of June 30, 2026, per the 13F filed August 14, 2026. Delta was Berkshire’s largest add of the quarter after Alphabet, and the only airline in the portfolio.
The size of the bet is the story. Berkshire disclosed a new Delta position of 39,809,456 shares worth roughly $2.65 billion in Q1 2026. One quarter later, Abel raised it by 44%. Same period, Berkshire exited Constellation Brands entirely and trimmed Bank of America, Capital One, Nucor, Kroger, DaVita and Ally. Abel has said nothing publicly about the trade, so any thesis has to be inferred from the filings and from Delta’s own disclosures.
Why This Reversal Matters
In his 2007 shareholder letter, Warren Buffett laid out one of his most quoted verdicts on the industry: “The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines.” He added that “investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it,” and joked that “if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”
Buffett called his 1989 USAir preferred a mistake, bought stakes in the big four US carriers in 2016, and sold all of them at a multibillion-dollar loss in May 2020. Buffett stepped down as CEO. His literal successor just re-entered the sector with a bigger check.
What Changed About Delta
The Delta on Abel’s book looks very different from the commodity carrier Buffett described. In the June quarter, diversified, high-margin revenue streams accounted for 61% of total revenue. Premium product revenue rose 17%, loyalty program revenue rose 19%, and American Express remuneration reached $2.4 billion, up 16%. Delta expects $9 billion in Amex remuneration this year and roughly $1.2 billion of Delta TechOps revenue, up nearly 50%. Add cargo and the Monroe Energy refinery, and the earnings base looks less like a legacy airline and more like a branded consumer platform with a flying operation attached.
CEO Ed Bastian’s framing is deliberate: “We’re no longer competing on price as much as we’re competing on value and experience and service.” Management affirmed FY 2026 adjusted EPS of $6.50 to $7.50 and free cash flow of $3 to $4 billion, absorbing record quarterly fuel costs of $4.41 billion. While Berkshire was buying, Delta declared a dividend increase to $0.215 per share from $0.1875 on June 18, 2026.
Should Retirement Investors Follow
The stock has run: up 44.02% over the past year and 19.66% year to date, though shares have slipped 7.77% over the past week to $82.41. Forward P/E sits at 13, with an analyst target of $105.31. Fuel and cyclicality remain real risks, and a 13F is a point-in-time snapshot as of June 30, 2026, not a statement of what Berkshire owns today (if you like borrowing Berkshire’s homework, we ranked the seven cheapest dividend payers still on its book in a free report here). The signal worth taking is analytical: Abel bought a diversified, brand-driven Delta with premium, loyalty, and Amex-linked revenue streams that did not exist in the commodity airline Buffett once rejected. If that thesis holds through the next fuel cycle, following the trade is defensible. Copying it blindly is not.
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