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 favorite at 43.5%, because the strongest regulator signals and the closest LaGuardia precedents point to a low-fare or limited-incumbent carrier.

Context

Spirit Airlines announced on May 2, 2026 that it had started an immediate wind-down and canceled all flights (Spirit wind-down announcement, May 2, 2026). The current public process is not complete: Spirit’s estate told the bankruptcy court that its 22 LaGuardia slots will be auctioned on July 9, 2026, with the winner chosen on a “highest and otherwise best” basis and court approval required before use (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

The other approval gate is the FAA/DOT. The FAA’s active LaGuardia order says trades and leases of Operating Authorizations require written FAA confirmation, and surrendered, withdrawn, or unassigned authorizations can be retired or reallocated depending on the hour and operational need (FAA LGA order, May 13, 2024). FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on May 28, 2026 that the Spirit slots should go to a low-fare airline for the public good, and that retirement is possible if that does not happen (AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026).

Evidence

The historical backbone is small but pointed. The closest direct bankruptcy analogue is ATA in 2008: the FAA said ATA had 14 LaGuardia slots, had ceased LGA operations on January 7, 2008 and all operations on April 3, 2008, and that an air-carrier acquirer in bankruptcy could “stand in the shoes” of ATA for slot allocation (FAA ATA/LGA clarification, October 31, 2008). Southwest then bid $7.5 million for those 14 slots, enough for up to seven daily round trips, subject to bankruptcy-court approval and FAA/Port Authority work (Southwest press release, November 19, 2008). In the Delta-US Airways slot-swap remedy, DOT/FAA sold 16 LaGuardia slot pairs in two eight-pair bundles, limited eligibility to carriers with less than 5% of the relevant airport’s slots, and awarded them to JetBlue and WestJet despite JetBlue bidding highest for all bundles (DOT slot-auction summary). In the American-US Airways merger settlement, DOJ required 34 LaGuardia slots and supporting facilities to be divested to DOJ-approved low-cost carrier purchasers, with preference for airlines without large slot or gate shares (DOJ, November 12, 2013). The exact Spirit LGA package was also pre-sold once as a remedy: JetBlue and Frontier signed a June 1, 2023 agreement for Frontier to take all of Spirit’s LaGuardia holdings, mainly six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023). I treat these as N=4 close analogues. All four point away from the largest incumbents, and the closest asset-specific analogue points to Frontier.

The current slot base reinforces that read. The FAA Summer 2025 LGA Holder Totals report was run December 5, 2025, has status date “2025 (Current & Future),” excludes FAA-held slots and slots held fewer than five days, and reports individual Operating Authorizations rather than round trips; the FAA also says holder reports reflect historically held allocations and do not capture short-term changes (FAA LGA Holder Totals, Summer 2025; FAA data caveats, last updated January 21, 2026). The holder report has N=12 named holders:

That is why Delta and American face the most regulatory friction, while Frontier has the cleanest “replace Spirit with a low-fare carrier” story (FAA LGA Holder Totals, Summer 2025).

The bidder evidence is mixed. Frontier is the best regulatory fit and already agreed to this package once, but it reported only $974 million of total liquidity at March 31, 2026, so it cannot ignore price discipline (Frontier Q1 2026 results, May 5, 2026). Southwest is the strongest low-fare balance-sheet bidder, with $3.3 billion in cash and a $1.5 billion revolver at the end of Q1 2026, and it has the ATA precedent on its side (Southwest Q1 2026 results, April 22, 2026). American has more financial firepower, with $10.8 billion of liquidity at March 31, 2026, and its CEO said American has a history of being aggressive when assets become available, but it is not the public-interest answer Bedford described (American Q1 2026 results, April 23, 2026; The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). JetBlue has New York logic and $2.4 billion of Q1 2026 liquidity, but the antitrust history is awkward because JetBlue’s prior remedy for absorbing Spirit was to give these slots to Frontier (JetBlue Q1 2026 results, April 28, 2026; JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023).

I used a scenario model rather than a pure average. I put 76% on one approved primary buyer, 15% on a split or hybrid allocation, 5% on an FAA-led partial reallocation or partial retirement path, and 4% on no clear allocation, full retirement, or annulment by May 2, 2028. For airline $i$, I used $P_i = 0.76S_i + 0.15H_i + 0.05R_i$, where $S_i$ is the chance of being the single buyer, $H_i$ is the chance of getting at least one pair in a split/hybrid case, and $R_i$ is the chance of getting at least one pair after FAA-led reallocation. The resulting rounded probabilities are Frontier 43.5%, Southwest 26%, JetBlue 19%, American 14%, Other 11%, United 3%, Delta 2%, and Alaska 1%.

What's non-obvious

The obvious read is “highest bidder wins.” That misses the approval risk. LGA slots are not ordinary estate property: the FAA order requires written FAA confirmation for transfers, allows retirement of some surrendered or withdrawn authorizations, and lets the FAA determine whether unassigned authorizations should be reallocated (FAA LGA order, May 13, 2024). A high cash bid from American, Delta, or United can lose “highest and otherwise best” status if it carries more closing risk than a lower low-fare-carrier bid.

The strongest clue is Frontier’s 2023 signed deal for the same assets. It is not just that Frontier is an ultra-low-cost carrier; JetBlue, Spirit, and Frontier already found a Frontier transfer of these LGA holdings workable enough to announce, and the stated purpose was preserving ultra-low-cost access at LaGuardia (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023). I still keep Frontier below 50% because the estate wants money, the reported LGA value is nearly $87 million, and Southwest, JetBlue, and American can all make credible strategic bids (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

Limitations

I did not find a final FAA order, DOT order, bankruptcy sale order, or confirmed winning bidder as of May 31, 2026; the latest public process I found is the planned July 9, 2026 auction and subsequent court approval step (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026; Bloomberg Law, May 28, 2026). I also could not verify the full current bidding-procedures motion or any sealed bidder list, so the single-package versus split-package assumption is the largest structural uncertainty.

The unit language is messy. FAA data and current reporting use “22 slots” or Operating Authorizations, while some legal and market commentary uses “slot pairs”; The Points Guy interprets 22 slots as roughly 12 daily flights because takeoffs and landings use separate authorities (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). That unit issue does not change the main airline ranking, but it could change how many airlines can practically receive at least one usable pair in a split outcome.