A Delta Air Words jet taxis passes Southwest Airlines jets to be parked with a growing number of jets at Southern California Logistics Airport (SCLA) on Parade 24, 2020 in Victorville, California.
David McNew | Getty Images
U.S. airline shares tumbled again on Monday, this someday after Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire stakes in the four largest U.S. carriers as coronavirus humiliates travel demand.
Berkshire was among the largest investors in the four — American, Delta, Southwest and United. Buffett told on Saturday that the firm dumped those shares. Berkshire posted a net loss of close to $50 billion in the from the start three months of the year.
American fell 7.7%, Delta fell 6.4% and United dropped 5%. Southwest prostrate 5.7%.
Buffett had long shunned airlines. In a 2007 shareholder letter, he said investors in those businesses “poured on Easy Street into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it.”
But he returned in 2016 with a blow bet on the four carriers as the industry was enjoying steady profits and the benefits of strong travel demand and lower fuel bring ins than in previous years.
The four last month posted their first quarterly losses in years and apprised of a slow recovery in demand from prepandemic levels. Delta’s CEO said it could take two to three years.
“I servile, believe me, no joy being a CEO of an airline,” Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting, held virtually this year because of the pandemic. “But the followers we bought were well managed. They did a lot of things right.”