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 best answer; Southwest and JetBlue are the only strong listed alternatives.

Context

Spirit announced an immediate wind-down on May 2, 2026, with all flights canceled, leaving its LaGuardia rights unused (Spirit wind-down statement). The live process is a court-supervised sale: Spirit filed bidding procedures for remaining assets on May 27, final LGA slot bids are due June 30, the auction is set for July 9, and approvals are expected to be obtainable by July 17 (Stretto docket summary). Judge Sean Lane approved Spirit’s process to market the LaGuardia slots on June 10 (Bloomberg Law).

The package is small but scarce. Public reporting and FAA holder data describe 22 LaGuardia slots, not 22 daily round trips; The Points Guy translates 22 takeoff/landing slots into roughly 12 daily flights, and says Spirit valued the package near USD 87 million (The Points Guy). The sale is not just a bankruptcy auction. FAA confirmation is needed for transfers, and the Port Authority has argued that slots have little practical value without airport-facility permission (Federal Register LGA order; The Points Guy).

Evidence

The historical backbone points toward low-fare or limited-incumbent carriers. In the 2011 Delta–US Airways slot swap, DOT/FAA required Delta and US Airways to divest 16 LaGuardia slot pairs in two bundles; only carriers with less than 5% of slots at the airport and no disqualifying codeshare could bid, JetBlue won one LaGuardia bundle, and WestJet won the other (U.S. DOT). In the 2013 American–US Airways settlement, DOJ required 34 LaGuardia slots and related facilities to be divested to DOJ-approved low-cost-carrier purchasers, with preference for airlines that did not already operate a large share of slots or gates (DOJ). The most direct prior transaction is the 2023 JetBlue–Frontier agreement: JetBlue agreed to transfer all Spirit LaGuardia holdings to Frontier, mainly six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier press release).

The current regulatory signal is also pro-low-fare. The FAA’s LGA order, effective October 27, 2024 through October 24, 2026, keeps 71 scheduled operating authorizations per hour, imposes an 80% use rule, allows leases and trades only with written FAA confirmation, and lets FAA retire or reallocate withdrawn, surrendered, or unassigned authorizations (Federal Register LGA order). FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on May 28, 2026 that the Spirit slots should go to a low-fare airline if that serves the public good, and that the slots could be retired if they cannot be transferred to such a carrier (AirlineGeeks). I read that as a real approval constraint, not just a preference.

The latest pre-shutdown FAA holder snapshot I found is the Summer 2025 LGA holder total, generated December 5, 2025, with status date 2025. It excludes FAA-held slots and slots held fewer than five days, and counts FAA slots rather than round-trip pairs (FAA Summer 2025 LGA holder totals).

That table cuts sharply against Delta and mostly against American. Delta already dominates LGA, and American is the second-largest holder. Frontier’s holder count is tiny. A separate FAA Summer 2025 operator report showed Frontier actually operating 10 LGA slots and Porter operating 6, so Frontier already has a small operating footprint and Porter is a live Other airline path (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). Current trade reporting says Frontier is widely considered a strong candidate, while American, JetBlue, and Southwest could also bid; it also describes Porter as a dark horse and flags Delta’s antitrust risk (The Points Guy; The Points Guy).

Frontier has the best combined score: it is the cleanest low-fare replacement, it previously negotiated for the exact package, it has little LGA concentration, and it is already the largest schedule responder to Spirit’s collapse. Aviation Week’s June 16, 2026 OAG-based analysis says Frontier added about 1.3 million seats year over year across former Spirit markets for June-August 2026, while JetBlue added more than 500,000 seats (Aviation Week). Frontier can also afford the package in a narrow balance-sheet sense: it reported USD 974 million of total liquidity as of March 31, 2026 (Frontier Q1 2026 earnings release). I still keep Frontier near 55%, not 70%, because no final bid or stalking-horse buyer has been reported, and Southwest, JetBlue, American, and Porter all have plausible strategic reasons to pursue at least part of the asset.

My model uses four paths: 65% for a single-buyer bankruptcy sale, 25% for a split or structured sale, 5% for an FAA/Port Authority-led reallocation after a sale problem, and 5% for retirement or no counted airline allocation before the deadline. In the single-buyer path I put Frontier at 52%, Southwest 15%, JetBlue 13%, American and Other airline(s) 8% each, United 2%, and Delta and Alaska 1% each. The split and regulator-led paths give multiple airlines a chance to receive at least one pair, which is why the final probabilities sum to more than 100%.

What's non-obvious

The obvious read is that the richest bidder wins. That is wrong. The FAA must approve transfers in writing, the Port Authority controls usable airport facilities, and the FAA chief has publicly framed the public-interest answer as a low-fare carrier or possible retirement (Federal Register LGA order; AirlineGeeks; The Points Guy). That makes Delta, American, and United less likely than their balance sheets suggest.

The other underpriced point is that Frontier is not just a generic budget airline. It is the carrier that already had a signed agreement for all of Spirit’s LGA holdings, including the Marine Air Terminal gates and the same 22 slots (JetBlue/Frontier press release). Southwest has precedent and money, and JetBlue has the New York network motive, but Frontier has the best mix of regulatory fit, prior diligence, and low-fare optics.

Limitations

The main gap is bidder identity. Final bids are not due until June 30, 2026, the auction is scheduled for July 9, and the approval deadline is July 17, so sealed bidder information could easily overturn the current public signal (Stretto docket summary).

The second gap is terminology. The FAA data and most reporting count 22 individual operating authorizations, while the question says slot pairs; this affects how many commercially viable bundles can be split, but not the airline ranking (FAA Summer 2025 LGA holder totals; The Points Guy). The third gap is legal-process risk: if the auction stalls, the FAA could retire or reallocate slots, and the current LGA order expires on October 24, 2026 unless extended or replaced (Federal Register LGA order).