Which airlines will take control of the takeoff and landing slots at LaGuardia that were held by Spirit Airlines prior to their May 2026 bankruptcy?

TL;DR

Frontier is the front-runner for Spirit’s former LaGuardia slots, with JetBlue the main alternative and American or Southwest most likely to get a small piece if the package is split.

Context

Spirit announced on May 2, 2026 that it had begun an immediate wind-down and that all flights were canceled, and its May 4 bankruptcy motion says passenger operations had stopped at about 3:00 a.m. Eastern on May 2 while the estate moved to preserve and sell remaining assets (Spirit wind-down statement, May 2, 2026; Spirit bankruptcy Doc. 1009, May 4, 2026). I found no final DOT, FAA, bankruptcy-court, Port Authority, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, or Wall Street Journal report by May 24, 2026 naming the final recipients of the LaGuardia slots.

The best official slot snapshot I found is the FAA Summer 2025 LaGuardia Operator Totals, generated on December 9, 2025 with “current & future” status; it counts individual arrival or departure slots, excludes FAA-held slots, and excludes slots held less than five days (FAA LGA Summer 2025 Operator Totals, Dec. 9, 2025). It lists Spirit with 22 LGA slots. JetBlue’s 2023 divestiture agreement described the same practical package as all Spirit LGA holdings, mainly six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier divestiture agreement, June 1, 2023). FAA says all slot transfers between operators need prior FAA confirmation (FAA Slot Administration data page, last updated Jan. 21, 2026).

Evidence

The historical backbone favors low-cost or limited-incumbent buyers, not the largest LaGuardia incumbents. The closest LGA precedents are these:

The current LGA slot baseline is highly concentrated. Using the FAA’s Summer 2025 operator file, the unit is individual slots, the coverage window is the Summer 2025 season, the vintage is December 9, 2025, and the sample is nine listed operators totaling 1,148 carrier slots (FAA LGA Summer 2025 Operator Totals, Dec. 9, 2025).

Those shares make Delta and American weak regulatory fits. If Delta took all 22 Spirit slots, its listed share would rise from 50.5% to 52.4%; if American did, its share would rise from 28.5% to 30.4%; if Frontier did, Frontier would rise from 0.9% to 2.8% (FAA LGA Summer 2025 Operator Totals, Dec. 9, 2025). That does not block a legacy purchase. This is a bankruptcy sale, not a merger remedy. But it is why I discount Delta most and why American’s chance is mostly in split-package scenarios.

The sale process pushes the other way. Spirit’s motion seeks authority to sell non-fleet assets and says a non-fleet asset sale above $5 million needs a separate court motion, while secondary reporting put the LGA slot value at $86.7 million (Spirit bankruptcy Doc. 1009, May 4, 2026; Briefs, May 4, 2026). Trade reporting also said the auction was drawing interest from American, JetBlue, and Frontier, with United expected to file qualified bids; I treat this as a weak signal because it is not an official bid list, but it fits the incentives (Aviation Shop, May 9, 2026). The court wants creditor value, so JetBlue and American cannot be dismissed just because Frontier is the cleaner public-interest story.

My model has four mechanisms: 55% that the LGA slots and related rights go as one package, 30% that they are split among two or more airlines, 10% that FAA/DOT or Port Authority pressure creates a more structured limited-incumbent allocation, and 5% that there is no clear final allocation by May 2, 2028. I used $P(\text{airline YES})=\sum_s P(s)P(\text{airline gets at least one slot pair}\mid s)$, where $s$ is the mechanism. That gives Frontier 56.8%, JetBlue 35.7%, American 20%, Other airlines 15%, Southwest 14%, United 9%, Delta 4%, and Alaska 3%.

What's non-obvious

The simple story is “highest bidder wins.” That is incomplete. LGA slots are regulated access rights, FAA confirmation is required for operator transfers, and the last large LGA slot remedies were built to protect low-cost or limited-incumbent competition (FAA Slot Administration data page, last updated Jan. 21, 2026; DOJ settlement, Nov. 12, 2013). The opposite mistake is to treat those remedies as binding precedent. They are not. The bankruptcy estate and secured lenders have a strong reason to maximize sale proceeds, so I put Frontier below 60% rather than treating the 2023 Frontier agreement as destiny.

The 2023 Frontier agreement is still more than a rumor. It shows Frontier wanted the exact asset, JetBlue had accepted Frontier as the remedy buyer, and the deal was framed around preserving ultra-low-cost service at LaGuardia (JetBlue/Frontier divestiture agreement, June 1, 2023). JetBlue is the main spoiler because it has a New York and Florida network fit, but the fact that JetBlue once promised to divest these exact LGA assets to Frontier makes a full JetBlue win harder to defend than a small-bundle win.

Limitations

The largest gap is the absence of a public sale order, stalking-horse bid, qualified-bidder list, FAA confirmation, DOT order, or Port Authority lease assignment by May 24, 2026. Private negotiations could already be far ahead of the public record.

The slot count is also messy. The FAA file says Spirit operated 22 individual LGA slots in the Summer 2025 season, while some deal and court language calls the same package 22 takeoff and landing slots or 22 slot-pairs (FAA LGA Summer 2025 Operator Totals, Dec. 9, 2025; U.S. v. JetBlue/Spirit findings, Jan. 16, 2024). I forecast the recipient of the former Spirit LGA operating authorities, not the exact number of round trips.

Two institutional constraints could change the packaging. The FAA’s current LGA order includes use-or-lose and retirement mechanics and was extended through October 24, 2026, while the Port Authority’s 2026-2035 capital plan includes Terminal A work and preservation of the historic Marine Air Terminal (FAA LGA operating-limit order, May 13, 2024; Port Authority 2026-2035 capital plan approval, Dec. 18, 2025). If FAA treats the authorities as lapsed rather than transferable, or if the Port Authority separates gates from slots, the split and “Other airline(s)” probabilities rise.