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 top name, with about a 51% chance of receiving at least one former Spirit LaGuardia slot pair. Other airline(s), JetBlue, and Southwest are the main secondary paths because the portfolio can be split and regulators want low-fare or new-entrant access. American can still win a piece by overbidding, while Delta, United, and Alaska sit in the tail because FAA, DOT, and Port Authority incentives cut against incumbent legacy concentration.

Context

Spirit announced an immediate wind-down on May 2, 2026, with all flights cancelled and customers told not to go to the airport (Spirit wind-down release). The LaGuardia asset is best framed as 22 individual FAA operating authorizations, or roughly 11 weekday round-trip slot pairs, not 22 slot pairs; the FAA Summer 2025 holder report, generated December 5, 2025 with status date 2025 and excluding FAA-held or sub-five-day slots, lists Spirit with 22 LGA authorizations (FAA Summer 2025 LGA holder totals).

No final recipient had been reported by June 25, 2026. Spirit’s May 27, 2026 bidding-procedures motion sets a June 30, 2026 final qualified-bid deadline for the LGA slots and a July 9, 2026 auction if there is more than one qualified bid, while Bloomberg Law reported that Judge Sean Lane approved the sale process on June 10, 2026 (Spirit bidding-procedures motion, Doc. 1117, Bloomberg Law, June 10, 2026).

Evidence

The historical backbone points away from the largest incumbents when scarce LGA access is allocated under bankruptcy pressure or regulator-supervised remedies. In 2008, Southwest agreed to pay $7.5 million for ATA’s 14 LGA takeoff and landing slots, enough for seven daily round trips, through bankruptcy-court approval and later FAA and Port Authority work (Travel Weekly, Nov. 19, 2008). In the 2011 Delta-US Airways slot-swap remedy, JetBlue paid $32 million for eight LGA slot pairs and WestJet paid $17.6 million for eight LGA slot pairs, with eligibility limited to carriers holding less than 5% of slots at the affected airport (Travel Weekly, Dec. 1, 2011). In the 2013 American-US Airways settlement, DOJ required divestiture of 34 LGA slots plus supporting facilities and said preference would go to airlines without a large slot or gate share at the airport (DOJ, Nov. 12, 2013).

The closest Spirit-specific prior favors Frontier. In June 2023, JetBlue and Frontier signed a definitive agreement under which JetBlue would transfer all of Spirit’s LaGuardia holdings to Frontier if the JetBlue-Spirit merger closed; those holdings were described as six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier release, June 1, 2023). That deal did not prove regulators had approved Frontier, because the merger was blocked. It does prove Frontier already wanted this exact package, including the terminal piece.

The current official framework also favors Frontier, Southwest, JetBlue, or an unlisted low-fare/new-entrant carrier over Delta, American, or United. The FAA’s June 2026 extension of the LGA operating order keeps the order effective until October 28, 2028; it maintains 71 scheduled operating authorizations per hour, imposes an 80% usage rule, allows trades and leases only with FAA written approval, and permits FAA retirement of surrendered, withdrawn, or unassigned authorizations until the hourly count reaches 71 (Federal Register public-inspection notice, June 23, 2026). The FAA slot data page says slot records are maintained by FAA Air Traffic Organization and all slot transfers are subject to prior FAA confirmation (FAA slot-administration data page).

The concentration data explain the regulator’s posture. The FAA Summer 2025 holder totals show Delta holding 511 LGA authorizations, American 327, United 94, Southwest 57, JetBlue 31, Alaska 12, Frontier 4, and Spirit 22, with the same report dated December 5, 2025 and using 2025 current/future status (FAA Summer 2025 LGA holder totals). That makes Spirit’s portfolio small for Delta or American, but transformational for Frontier and material for JetBlue, Southwest, Porter, Allegiant, Breeze, or another smaller carrier.

The strongest current signal is the FAA/DOT low-fare preference. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the slots should go to another low-cost carrier for the public good, and that retirement was an option if that could not happen (AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). The Port Authority then added a second constraint: in a June 3, 2026 objection, it argued that slots are not a fungible contract or license and have no intrinsic value without airport-facility permission, and in a June 9, 2026 response it said a buyer may need to assume the Marine Air Terminal lease and cure defaults or else crowd Terminals B and C (Port Authority objection, June 3, 2026, Port Authority response, June 9, 2026).

Current reporting keeps the field open. The Points Guy reported on May 28, 2026 that no airline executive had explicitly said they wanted the LGA slots, but that American, Frontier, JetBlue, and Southwest were widely viewed as leading candidates, with Porter as a dark horse because U.S. preclearance at Toronto Billy Bishop could make LGA more attractive (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). Bloomberg Law reported on June 17, 2026 that JetBlue was evaluating LGA opportunities, Porter was interested in more LGA slots depending on the process, and the Port Authority had named Allegiant, Frontier, El Al, Arkia, and Etihad among airlines interested in entering or expanding at its airports (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026). I discount the foreign long-haul names for actual LGA slot use because LGA’s perimeter and customs setup make them poor fits, but their presence raises the Other bucket a little.

My model uses four paths: 60% for one effective package winner, 27% for a split sale or conditioned transfer, 6% for FAA-led reallocation or settlement after a failed clean sale, and 7% for retirement, litigation, or no clear airline allocation by the deadline. In the single-package path, I give Frontier 45%, JetBlue 14.5%, American 14%, Southwest 12%, Other 10.5%, United 2.5%, Delta 1%, and Alaska 0.5%. In the split and FAA-led paths, I use inclusion probabilities rather than winner shares, with Frontier still highest but Other boosted because Allegiant, Porter, Breeze, WestJet, Air Canada, and startup bidders all live in that bucket. This produces Frontier at 51%, Other at 24%, JetBlue at 23%, Southwest at 20%, American at 16%, United at 5%, Delta at 2%, and Alaska at 2% after prose rounding.

What's non-obvious

The obvious read is highest bidder wins. That misses the main constraint. A bankruptcy sale can maximize estate value only if the buyer can close, and closing requires FAA confirmation plus workable Port Authority facilities access; a higher bid from American or Delta that cannot get those approvals may not be the best bid under the sale procedures (Spirit bidding-procedures motion, Doc. 1117, FAA slot-administration data page).

The second missed point is that Other is a real option, not a junk drawer. Frontier has the best single-airline case, but if the FAA or Port Authority pushes for a low-fare/new-entrant solution and Frontier underbids, the unlisted bucket contains Allegiant, Porter, Breeze, WestJet, Air Canada, and possible startup structures; even one slot pair to any of them resolves Other as YES (Bloomberg Law, June 17, 2026).

Limitations

The largest missing fact is the bid stack. The final qualified-bid deadline is June 30, 2026, so as of June 25 there is no public qualified-bidder list, no bid amounts, and no FAA/DOT written decision on which buyers are acceptable (Spirit bidding-procedures motion, Doc. 1117).

The second gap is legal discretion. The FAA clearly must confirm transfers, and Bedford clearly signaled a low-cost-or-retire preference, but the exact boundary of FAA power to reject a higher-priced legacy-carrier transaction in this bankruptcy fact pattern has not been tested in public filings. The third gap is facilities: the Port Authority can shape practical use of Terminal A, but the court’s approval of sale procedures did not settle the final gate and lease terms. Finally, public sources are sloppy about slots versus slot pairs; I used the FAA holder data, which supports 22 individual LGA operating authorizations, as the controlling count.