Delta Air Lines (DAL) has earned a price-target upgrade from Argus Research, adding more steam to the company’s bull run.
Argus analyst John Staszak, who rates DAL at Buy, wrote a research note Monday morning in which he raised his price target to $100 from $85 previously, citing retreating oil prices and continued success from Delta’s SkyMiles.
“We consider Delta the industry leader among network carriers, benefitting from its strong loyalty program, robust international travel network, and the secular growing demand for premium travel,” he says. “Looking ahead, we expect the share price to benefit as jet fuel prices ease and its highly profitable loyalty program grows.”
The upgrade comes a couple weeks ahead of the company’s second-quarter earnings report, due out July 9.
More Analyst Thoughts on DAL
Among other things Staszak likes about Delta is its clean balance sheet, stock-buyback program (Delta intends on spending $1 billion on repurchases by 2028), and low valuations “inadequately reflecting the company’s carefully managed capacity, in our opinion.”
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“Looking ahead, in 2026, we expect revenue to grow 20%, to $70 billion, driven by strong demand for premium seating, additional capacity and cargo revenue gains. However, driven by stubbornly high oil prices, we now expected adjusted earnings to decline 4% to $5.58 (down from our prior estimate of $7.00),” he says. “For 2027, we expect earnings to recover. Our projections assume that oil prices will normalize and that the recent agreement between Iran and the U.S. will be upheld. Our full-year earnings estimate is $7.30 per share, down from $9.00 to reflect the lower 2026 base.”
| Delta Air Lines (DAL): Quick Stats | |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $56.1 billion |
| Dividend yield | 0.9% |
| Forward price-to-earnings (P/E) | 15.2 |
| Price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) | N/A |
| Source: Yahoo! Finance. Data is as of June 21, 2026. | |
DAL shares largely struggled to start the year but bottomed out in mid-March and have been steadily climbing higher since; shares are now up by about 24% year-to-date.
Delta is also one of the Wall Street analyst community’s highest-conviction Buy calls. The company currently enjoys 26 Buy-equivalent ratings against no Holds and a single Sell. Their target price of $82.61 is actually below where DAL trades today, which could force bulls like Argus to revise their targets higher. And over the long term (the next three to five years), they see DAL growing earnings by about 15% annually.
Back in April, UBS analyst Atul Maheswari (Buy) upgraded his price target to $86 from $84 previously, writing, “We think continuing demand strength at DAL was a key takeaway from its earnings. This should help allay fears that demand might be slowing for the industry in the face of price increases.” Since then, its target on Delta has been upgraded to $98.
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BMO Capital Markets analyst Michael Goldie (Outperform), meanwhile, says “we continue to prefer DAL given balanced growth, strong execution, revenue diversification, and refining capability. We see runway of opportunity and clear strategic frameworks across our Outperform-rated Southwest (LUV) and United Airlines (UAL).”
Also worth noting? Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) took a new $2.6 billion position in Delta during the first quarter, according to the holding company’s 13-F, released in mid-May.
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