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 Airlines is the best single answer because it is the lowest-friction replacement for Spirit at LaGuardia and already had a signed, regulator-facing deal for this exact slot-and-gate package.

Context

Spirit announced on May 2, 2026 that it had started an immediate wind-down and cancelled all flights, and the bankruptcy docket for Spirit Aviation Holdings remains active with a May 22, 2026 filing and a May 27, 2026 hearing agenda (Spirit wind-down statement; bankruptcy docket monitor, case 25-11897). I found no public DOT, FAA, Port Authority, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, WSJ, or bankruptcy-sale order naming a final recipient for the former Spirit LaGuardia slots as of May 23, 2026.

The asset is valuable but small. Spirit reported 22 LaGuardia takeoff and landing rights with an $83.5 million carrying value as of December 31, 2025, and DOT defines one slot as authority for one takeoff or one landing, so the practical package is closer to 11 daily round trips than 22 daily round trips (Spirit 2025 Form 10-K; DOT slots and exemptions page). The 2023 JetBlue-Frontier divestiture agreement tied the same LGA package to six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to airport and federal approvals (Frontier/JetBlue divestiture announcement).

Evidence

The base rate does not favor a pure highest-bidder sale to a large incumbent. In the Delta-US Airways slot-swap remedy, DOT/FAA auctioned 16 LaGuardia slot pairs in two bundles, limited eligibility to carriers with less than 5% of slots at the airport, and awarded one LGA bundle to JetBlue and one to WestJet even though JetBlue bid highest for all bundles (DOT slot award, August 1, 2019). In the American-US Airways settlement, DOJ required 34 LaGuardia slots and supporting facilities to go to approved low-cost-carrier purchasers, with preference for airlines that did not already hold a large share of slots or gates (DOJ American-US Airways settlement, November 12, 2013). The closest bankruptcy analogue is ATA, where Southwest entered LaGuardia after buying ATA assets that included 14 LGA slots (Travel Weekly on Southwest/ATA, November 19, 2008). This is a small reference class, but all three examples point toward smaller or low-cost carriers rather than Delta, American, or United taking scarce LGA access outright.

The latest FAA holder table I could verify is a pre-shutdown holder report, not a May 2026 live ledger. Units are individual LaGuardia operating authorizations, coverage is LGA season Winter with status date October 27, 2024, the report was generated July 9, 2025, it excludes FAA-held slots and slots held fewer than five days, and N=12 holder rows (FAA LGA holder totals).

The FAA process matters because LaGuardia slots are not ordinary estate property. The current LaGuardia order remains effective until October 24, 2026, caps scheduled operating authorizations at 71 per hour, requires FAA written confirmation before a carrier trade or lease is effective, imposes an 80% use rule, and allows withdrawn, surrendered, or unassigned authorizations to be reallocated by lottery; it also says surrendered or withdrawn authorizations can be retired while hourly totals remain above 71 (Federal Register LGA operating-limit order, May 13, 2024). That makes regulatory cleanliness a real input, not a footnote.

Frontier gets the highest probability because it has the most specific revealed preference. In 2023, Frontier agreed to acquire all of Spirit's LGA holdings, including six gates and 22 slots, if JetBlue bought Spirit (Frontier/JetBlue divestiture announcement). The JetBlue-Spirit trial findings also state that Frontier was the planned buyer for Spirit's 22 slots, six gates, and associated LGA ground facilities, while warning that such transfers still needed airport approvals and did not obligate Frontier to preserve all Spirit capacity (U.S. v. JetBlue/Spirit findings, January 16, 2024). I read that as a strong signal of fit, not a current legal right.

JetBlue is the main alternative. It has a New York brand, a small LGA slot base, and it moved fastest at Spirit's Fort Lauderdale stronghold after the shutdown; post-shutdown schedule data showed JetBlue adding or renewing many former Spirit routes from FLL (The Points Guy route summary, May 12, 2026; Travel Weekly route summary, May 12, 2026). The counterweight is regulatory optics: JetBlue's full acquisition of Spirit was blocked in 2024, and the remedy for that deal put Spirit's LGA assets in Frontier's hands rather than JetBlue's (U.S. v. JetBlue/Spirit findings, January 16, 2024).

American and Southwest are the next tier. American has cash, LGA scale, and a direct use case, and schedule data already showed an added ORD-LGA flight after Spirit's collapse, but it is the second-largest LGA slot holder (The Points Guy route summary, May 12, 2026; FAA LGA holder totals). Southwest has the cleanest LCC history at LGA and exactly the kind of non-dominant position regulators have favored, but it is less tied to Spirit's New York-Florida and ULCC network than Frontier or JetBlue (DOT slot award, August 1, 2019; DOJ American-US Airways settlement, November 12, 2013). United is a real bidder because New York access is scarce, but its Newark hub makes it less competition-enhancing. Delta is the carrier that would value LGA most, but its 44.8% listed share makes it the least clean recipient.

My model uses four paths: a one-buyer package sale at 58%, a split sale at 30%, an FAA-led return or reallocation path at 7%, and no clear final allocation or effective retirement before May 2, 2028 at 5%. For option $i$, I used $P_i = \sum_s w_s q_{i,s}$, where $w_s$ is the path weight and $q_{i,s}$ is the chance that option receives at least one former Spirit LGA slot in that path. The one-buyer path is dominated by Frontier, JetBlue, and American; the split path raises JetBlue, American, and Southwest; the FAA path raises Southwest and Other because past FAA/DOT processes favored limited incumbents and new entrants. This gives Frontier 57.6%, JetBlue 38.2%, American 21%, Southwest 20%, Other 14%, United 10%, Delta 4%, and Alaska 3%.

What's non-obvious

The obvious story is that the airline willing to pay the most gets the slots. That is incomplete. The bankruptcy estate can monetize the rights, but FAA approval is needed for transfers, the FAA can withdraw or reallocate unused authorizations, and past LGA remedies were explicitly designed to add competition rather than increase incumbent concentration (Federal Register LGA operating-limit order, May 13, 2024; DOT slot award, August 1, 2019; DOJ American-US Airways settlement, November 12, 2013). That is why Delta is low and Frontier is high.

The second miss is the terminal. The Marine Air Terminal makes a single replacement tenant cleaner, which helps Frontier because the 2023 remedy already bundled the gates and slots for Frontier. But the slot package itself is only 22 individual operating authorizations, so the gates and the slots may not stay perfectly bundled in a liquidation. If the Port Authority, the estate, or FAA separates the terminal issue from the runway rights, JetBlue, American, Southwest, and Other all rise.

Limitations

The largest gap is the absence of a verified LGA slot-sale motion, qualified-bidder list, stalking-horse agreement, Port Authority replacement-tenant notice, or FAA transfer confirmation. The public bankruptcy docket shows an active wind-down, and the wind-down documents require liquidation reporting by asset categories including slots and gates, but I could not verify a filing that names the LGA slot buyer (wind-down motion, May 4, 2026; bankruptcy docket monitor, case 25-11897).

The second gap is terminology. FAA and DOT sources count a slot as one arrival or one departure, while some industry and question language uses slot pairs. I forecast recipients of usable arrival/departure authority, not a particular drafting convention. The third gap is political discretion. A more creditor-value-maximizing DOT/FAA process would raise American, JetBlue, and United; a more competition-focused process would raise Frontier, Southwest, and Other. A weak aviation-retail report said the LGA auction was drawing American, JetBlue, and Frontier interest, but I treat it only as a low-weight signal because I could not verify the cited primary filing (Aviation Shop report, May 9, 2026).