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 lead forecast because it is the only carrier that already signed for this exact Spirit LaGuardia package and it fits the FAA’s low-fare-carrier preference. Southwest, JetBlue, American, and Porter-led Other are live second-tier outcomes because the estate wants value and the slots could be split. Delta, United, and Alaska remain long shots because they are either too concentrated at LaGuardia or have weak strategic fit.

Context

Spirit announced on May 2, 2026 that it had begun an immediate wind-down, canceled all flights, and no longer had customer service available (Spirit restructuring notice; AP, May 2, 2026). As of June 24, 2026, no airline has been confirmed as the final controller of the former Spirit LaGuardia slots. The bankruptcy sale process is still pre-award: Spirit’s bidding-procedures motion put final LGA slot bids on June 30, the auction on July 9, notice of results on July 10, and a July 17 deadline for required approvals to be obtainable (Stretto docket summary, June 1, 2026).

The best unit count is 22 individual LGA slots, not 22 daily slot pairs. FAA Summer 2025 operator totals, generated December 9, 2025 with status date 2025 and excluding FAA-held slots and slots held under five days, list Spirit at 22 LGA slots; The Points Guy translates that into roughly 12 daily flights because an airline needs separate arrival and departure authority (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals; The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). That size makes one lead buyer more likely than a many-airline split, but split allocation still matters because each option resolves YES if it gets even one usable former Spirit slot pair.

Evidence

The base rate is not “richest airline wins.” Scarce LGA slots have repeatedly been handled through competition remedies. In the 2011 Delta-US Airways LGA/DCA slot-swap remedy, the divested LGA bundles went to JetBlue and WestJet rather than the largest incumbents (DOT 2011 award). In the 2013 American-US Airways merger settlement, DOJ required slot and gate divestitures at constrained airports to low-cost carriers, including LaGuardia slots (DOJ, Nov. 12, 2013). The most direct precedent points to Frontier: in June 2023, JetBlue agreed to transfer all of Spirit’s LaGuardia holdings to Frontier, mainly six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, if the JetBlue-Spirit merger closed (JetBlue/Frontier release, June 1, 2023).

The current regulatory path also points toward Frontier or another low-fare/limited-incumbent airline. The FAA’s LaGuardia order, published May 13, 2024 and effective through October 24, 2026, keeps LGA at 71 scheduled operating authorizations per hour, imposes an 80% use requirement, permits trades and leases for consideration, and requires written FAA confirmation before transfers become effective (Federal Register LGA order, May 13, 2024). On May 28, 2026, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the former Spirit slots should go to a low-fare carrier for the public good, and could be retired if that does not happen (AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). This is not a legal command, but it is a real veto-risk signal.

The concentration numbers explain why Delta and American are disadvantaged despite their ability to pay. The FAA Summer 2025 operator file shows Delta at 580 LGA slots, American at 327, Southwest at 70, United at 67, JetBlue at 31, Spirit at 22, Frontier at 10, and Porter at 6; Delta plus American operated 907 of the 1,148 listed slots, or about 79% of that published operator pool (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). FAA holder totals tell the same story with slightly different ownership/lease framing: Delta 511, American 327, United 94, Southwest 57, JetBlue 31, Alaska 12, Spirit 22, and Frontier 4 (FAA Summer 2025 LGA holder totals). Frontier is small enough to be a clean competition story; Delta is the hardest antitrust story; American is commercially logical but politically awkward.

The bankruptcy process cuts the other way. Spirit valued the slots near $87 million, and the sale uses a “highest and otherwise best” standard rather than a pure public-interest allocation (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). Bloomberg Law reported on June 17 that Spirit had about $8.1 billion in debt and roughly 17,000 laid-off employees, so creditors want proceeds, but the same report says the sale has to navigate creditor, FAA, DOT, and Port Authority goals (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026). I read this as raising American, Southwest, and JetBlue relative to a regulator-only model, while still leaving Frontier first because the best bid must be executable.

Facilities are a second veto point. Spirit used Terminal A, the Marine Air Terminal, and Bloomberg Law reported that the Port Authority told the bankruptcy court that slot rights alone are not enough: a buyer may need to take over Spirit’s Terminal A lease and cure defaults, while moving the flights to Terminals B or C would create crowding and rental-income issues (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026). That favors a buyer willing to use or absorb Terminal A. Frontier already signed for the combined slots-and-gates package in 2023, which is the strongest revealed-preference signal in the file (JetBlue/Frontier release, June 1, 2023).

The live interest signals are useful but thin. Frontier’s CEO said the airline would look at Spirit wind-down assets while staying disciplined, and American’s CEO said American has historically been aggressive when assets become available (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). JetBlue said it was evaluating LGA opportunities, while noting high New York-area operating costs; Porter said it was interested in more LGA slots if the allocation process was defined (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026). The same Bloomberg Law report said the Port Authority named Allegiant, Frontier, El Al, Arkia, and Etihad as airlines interested in entering or expanding at Port Authority airports, but that is broader than a confirmed LGA-slot bid (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026).

I used a scenario model. I assign a 68% chance to one lead buyer taking substantially all 22 individual slots, a 25% chance to a split or conditioned allocation, and a 7% chance to retirement, litigation, or no clear counted allocation before resolution. In the lead-buyer path, my weights are Frontier 45%, Southwest 16%, JetBlue 13%, American 15%, Other 6%, United 3%, Delta 1.5%, and Alaska 0.5%. In the split path, my at-least-one-slot conditional probabilities are Frontier 82%, Southwest 56%, JetBlue 54%, American 34%, Other 60%, United 18%, Delta 9%, and Alaska 5%. Combining those gives Frontier 51%, Southwest 25%, JetBlue 22%, American 19%, Other 19%, United 6.5%, Delta 3.3%, and Alaska 1.6%.

What's non-obvious

The prompt’s “slot pairs” language can overstate the size of the asset. FAA data and sale coverage support 22 individual slots, or about 11 to 12 daily flights, which makes a single-buyer solution practical and explains why the 2023 Frontier package is such a strong analogue (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals; The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). A split remains possible, but the default should not be a broad lottery across many carriers.

The other hidden point is that “highest bidder” and “best bidder” are different here. The bankruptcy estate needs money, but FAA written approval and Port Authority facility control make a nominally high legacy-carrier bid less certain than a lower low-fare bid that regulators can bless (Federal Register LGA order, May 13, 2024; Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026). That is why Frontier outranks American and Delta despite having less financial firepower.

Limitations

No public source I found names a qualified bidder, bid amount, stalking-horse bidder, sale winner, FAA transfer confirmation, DOT order, or Port Authority terminal agreement as of June 24, 2026. The decisive private facts are the June 30 bid sheet, any pre-clearance conversations with FAA/DOT and the Port Authority, the Terminal A lease cure cost, and whether bidders offer enforceable low-fare or underserved-market commitments. The biggest model sensitivity is regulatory resolve: if FAA/DOT let the bankruptcy court maximize cash with minimal conditions, American and JetBlue rise; if regulators insist on a low-fare or limited-incumbent outcome, Frontier and Other rise while Delta, United, and American fall.