Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL): Jim Cramer Declares "The Travel Bull Market Is Completely Done" - Should You Bail?

We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s Game Plan: 10 Stocks in Focus. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) stands against other stocks in Jim Cramer’s focus.

On Friday, Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, commented on the current state of the markets as he emphasized that this week’s earnings reports will be the first real indicator of how CEOs are managing tariff-related challenges ahead.

Cramer highlighted the continuing collapse in the markets and remarked that there is a “manmade obliteration”. He mentioned that the crisis is far from over. He also expressed concerns about the rising tariffs, especially with the White House’s current stance on trade policy.

“Right now, I’m most worried about inflation, which is something… let’s say something that we’ll be thinking about a lot when? When we have the CPI report. This is what really matters, see, because this is where we are not going to be able to cut rates if these numbers start being bad. Inflation became very sticky, and it was no longer going the Fed’s way even before the tariffs.”

READ ALSO: 10 Stocks on Jim Cramer’s Radar Recently and Jim Cramer’s Take on These 10 Stocks

Cramer warned that tariffs could drive prices up even further which can lead to reduced consumer purchasing power. Highlighting the scale of President Trump’s tariffs, Cramer said that it was nearly impossible for these tariffs not to raise consumer prices. He noted that the Federal Reserve’s attempts to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy will be met with challenges by inflationary pressure. He added:

“I say the Fed’s locked in a box here and can’t do nearly as much as they might like because they don’t want to spur another route of inflation on their own.”

Cramer pointed out that various banks are predicting that there will be a recession. He mentioned that some are focusing on the 10-year Treasury yield dropping below 4% as a signal of an impending recession. He went on to acknowledge the difficulty of the day and week for investors. He added:

“Our only real hope is that the president comes up with something that can turn this bear into a bull and he can do it even as he seems unwilling to scale back the tariffs. All he has to do is offer our companies a path to get out of this hell that they did not create and they do not deserve. But the bottom line: That’s a very glass-half-full hope in what feels like a glass totally empty market.”

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 10 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money aired on April 4. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the fourth quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 84

Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) is set to report on April 9, and here’s what Mad Money’s host had to say:

“Wednesday, Delta reports. I expect an awful number. They already told us things aren’t so great, but has business stayed weak from their last report or maybe even weaker? I worry that the travel bull market is completely done, especially if we’re gonna go into recession.”

Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) is an airline and the company offers passenger and cargo services on many domestic and international routes. On March 13, Cramer extensively commented on the company as he said:

“Now for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this week Delta Airlines slashed its first-quarter earnings outlook, citing, ‘the recent reduction in consumer and corporate confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty’, which they say drove ‘softness and domestic demand’ in recent weeks. Now for a long time, Delta was the best of the airlines so you really don’t want to hear that kind of commentary from them. Now these guys cut their guidance ahead of an appearance at the JPMorgan Industrials conference on Tuesday.

But honestly, these names have already come down dramatically over the past few weeks. This makes them very interesting to me. After this week’s blood bath, you got a lot of them are down 35 to 40%. So given all the newfound negativity, why on earth would I stick my neck out and recommend some cheap travel plays? Look, as tough as these airlines, the updates were, the collective news, frankly, it wasn’t that horrible, at least not if you listen closely…

Let’s start with Delta, which kicked things off with this guidance cut. Monday night, Delta CEO Ed Bastian spoke with CNBC’s Phil LeBeau on Closing Bell that night and explained that the domestic, corporate, and consumer spending ‘started to stall’ in February, mostly due to lower consumer confidence. But he also said he believes this weakness is transitory… Bastian is pretty confident we’re not headed for a real recession.

Delta cut the revenue growth forecast from 8% to 4%… It is not great but in a recession, they, they’d be down double digits. Bastian also noted that some of the weakness came after a couple of high-profile air safety instances.”

Overall, DAL ranks 4th on our list of stocks in Jim Cramer’s focus. While we acknowledge the potential of DAL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DAL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.