(Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Delta, the K-shaped airline

Delta’s premium ticket sales grew more than 7% in 2025. Its main cabin ticket sales fell 5%.

1/13/26 2:22PM

For the first time, Delta is making more money from its first-class and Comfort+ passengers than its main cabin passengers.

In the fourth quarter, Delta’s premium ticket revenue grew 9% to $5.7 billion, while its main cabin sales fell 7% to $5.62 billion. That happened a few quarters earlier than even Delta expected — back in October, CEO Ed Bastian said it could occur a few times in fiscal 2026.

While notable, the outcome has been inevitable for a while. Premium ticket growth has outpaced main growth every quarter for at least three years at Delta, as travel has become a core pillar of America’s “K-shaped economy,” in which affluent consumers do well and those on the lower end of the income spectrum cut back.

“If you look at the economy, if you look, you look at strength of the market and at how... high-end consumers are feeling about their opportunities, they’re quite bullish,” Bastian said on Tuesday’s earnings call.

Delta is leaning into the K, relying on wealthier travelers to bolster its profits — and the margin spreads have never been greater. According to Delta President Glen Hauenstein on Tuesday’s earnings call, 2026 will see all of the airline’s new seat growth (it plans to boost capacity by 3%) concentrated in premium cabins.

“The bottom end of the industry and the commodity side of the business has been struggling greatly,” Hauenstein said. “That sector has been unable to grow here for the last several years.”

Helping premium grow comfortably as the main cabin experiences turbulence is Delta’s co-branded American Express credit card, which brought in $8.4 billion last year. Cardholders receive points on purchases and can board their flights earlier — and benefits increase with higher, i.e. premium, spending.

Those cardholders, Bastian said, are “among [Delta’s] most valuable and satisfied customers, traveling more often and spending more on Delta.”

Max Knoblauch5/29/26

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 50% made-in-America requirement for USMCA tariff relief

Qualifying for USMCA-related lower tariffs may soon require more US-made vehicle components, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to introduce a 50% US content requirement for vehicles covered by the trade pact to receive lower tariffs. The content would be measured by cost, according to the WSJ.

There currently isn’t any US-specific requirement for those lower tariff rates, but in order to receive preferential tariffs, vehicles are must contain at least 75% regional content (components made in North America). Per Reuters reporting, the Trump admin is seeking to raise the regional requirement to 82%.

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Overall, Tesla will likely have the easiest time qualifying for any stricter requirements. The automaker’s vehicles contained the highest amount of US/Canadian content in 2025, according to American University research. Ford, GM, and Stellantis all scored lower.

Notably: the underlying government data that many domestic content measurements rely on intentionally combines US and Canadian components, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of any given vehicle is specifically US-made.

Exclusive | Trump Administration Wants Autos Under USMCA to Be at Least 50% Made in America

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Tom Jones5/29/26

The $640,000 Luce makes the average Ferrari look like a bargain

Put aside the shape; put aside the smoothing out of Ferrari’s iconic sharp edges; put aside, even, the calls from former Chairman and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to “take the Prancing Horse off.” On the grounds of price alone, Luce detractors might have a point.

By now, many of us will have read the criticisms of Ferrari’s first fully electric vehicle, as the Luce — which was unveiled to the world earlier this week and promptly saw the company’s shares crash out in New York and Milan — gets subtly shaded by competitors online and not-so-subtly shaded by basically everyone else.

What makes all of this worse for Ferrari is that, even by the luxury car maker’s notoriously high standards, they’ve slapped a pretty hefty price tag on the Luce, and the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, has already been forced to defend the €550,000 ($640,000) price point, saying yesterday that it’s “fair to pay for innovation,” per Reuters.

While Ferrari’s cars have been getting more expensive of late, as recently as 2022, Ferrari’s average revenue per car sold was around $340,000. At nearly twice that price, this new electric model is obviously proving a little much (visually, conceptually, and financially) for many loyal and long-standing fans of the Prancing Horse to stomach.