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 single answer at 53% because it is the only carrier with a prior signed deal for these exact Spirit LaGuardia assets and it fits the FAA low-fare preference (JetBlue/Frontier agreement; AirlineGeeks) (news.jetblue.com). JetBlue (29%), Southwest (21%), Other airline(s) (18%), and American (14%) are live because Spirit can sell the 22 slots as one or several transactions and because a split or regulator-shaped allocation remains possible (Spirit bidding procedures) (documents.elevenflo.com). Delta (2%), United (5%), and Alaska (2%) are long shots because Delta is already LGA's largest holder, United has less need given Newark and its CEO downplayed consolidation, and Alaska has no public signal of interest (FAA holder totals; The Points Guy) (faa.gov).

Context

Spirit began an orderly wind-down on May 2, 2026, canceled all flights, and said it had no further funding after a material rise in oil prices and other pressures (Spirit wind-down notice) (spiritrestructuring.com). Its May 27, 2026 bankruptcy sale motion included New York LaGuardia slots among the assets to be sold, and FAA's Summer 2025 holder table shows Spirit with 22 LGA slots as of the December 5, 2025 status date (Spirit bidding procedures; FAA holder totals) (documents.elevenflo.com).

The public sale process was still pre-auction on July 5, 2026: the LGA final bid deadline was June 30, the auction was set for July 9 if needed, and the target date to file auction results was July 10 (Spirit bidding procedures) (documents.elevenflo.com). A bankruptcy sale is not enough by itself; the FAA's June 23, 2026 LaGuardia order keeps the slot regime in place until October 28, 2028 and requires FAA written approval for slot trades or leases (Federal Register/Justia) (regulations.justia.com).

Evidence

The historical backbone is slot remedies, not ordinary bankruptcy asset sales. In the Delta-US Airways slot-swap remedy, DOT and FAA required divestiture of 16 LaGuardia slot pairs, limited eligibility to carriers with less than 5% of slots at the airport, and awarded one LGA bundle to WestJet even though JetBlue had the highest bids for all three bundles; the seven bidders included JetBlue, WestJet, Allegiant, Frontier, Sun Country, Southwest, and Spirit (DOT slot award) (transportation.gov). In the American-US Airways merger settlement, DOJ required 34 LGA slots and related facilities to go to low-cost-carrier purchasers approved by the department, with preference for carriers that did not already operate a large share of slots or gates; Southwest then acquired 12 LGA takeoff-and-landing slots plus permanent control of 10 slots it had leased from American (DOJ settlement; Southwest release) (justice.gov).

The strongest direct signal points to Frontier. In June 2023, JetBlue agreed to transfer all of Spirit's LaGuardia holdings to Frontier if the JetBlue-Spirit merger closed; the package was six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff-and-landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier agreement) (news.jetblue.com). That deal failed with the merger, but it is revealed-preference evidence that Frontier wanted this exact package, that JetBlue had accepted Frontier as the competition remedy, and that the structure matched the current low-fare rationale.

The best pre-shutdown control baseline is FAA's Summer 2025 LGA holder table. Units are regular LGA operating authorizations, also called slots; coverage is the Summer 2025 LGA season; the status date is December 5, 2025 at 07:59; the sample is 1,141 non-FAA-held listed slots; and the table excludes FAA-held slots and slots held less than five days (FAA holder totals) (faa.gov).

That table is the main reason Delta and American are penalized. Awarding all 22 Spirit slots to Frontier would move Frontier from 0.4% to about 2.3% of listed slots; JetBlue would move from 2.7% to 4.6%; Southwest would move from 5.0% to 6.9%; American would move from 28.7% to 30.6%; and Delta would move from 44.8% to 46.7% (FAA holder totals) (faa.gov). That makes Frontier and JetBlue clean competition remedies, Southwest plausible, American difficult, and Delta very hard.

The current regulators are saying the quiet part aloud. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on May 28, 2026 that the slots should go to another low-fare airline for the public good and could be retired if they cannot be transferred to a low-cost carrier (AirlineGeeks) (airlinegeeks.com). The FAA order also says 71 operating authorizations are available per hour, that surrendered or withdrawn authorizations may be retired until the affected hour reaches 71, that trades or leases need FAA approval, and that the 80% two-month usage rule applies (Federal Register/Justia) (regulations.justia.com).

The Port Authority adds a second veto point. It told the bankruptcy court that LGA slots are not a fungible contract or license, that slots have no intrinsic value without airport-facility permission, and that any buyer must also be willing to assume Spirit's Marine Air Terminal lease and cure defaults (Port Authority objection; Port Authority response) (document.epiq11.com). Bloomberg Law framed the sale as a conflict between creditors seeking top dollar and regulators seeking regional competition, and quoted bankruptcy specialists saying the best bid includes regulatory certainty, not just cash (Bloomberg Law) (news.bloomberglaw.com).

Carrier-level signals fit that structure. Frontier gets the highest probability because of the 2023 exact-package agreement, its ultra-low-cost profile, and its tiny current LGA footprint (JetBlue/Frontier agreement; FAA holder totals) (news.jetblue.com). JetBlue is second because it is a New York carrier, is small at LGA, and said it was evaluating LGA opportunities, but it is not an ultra-low-cost carrier and previously needed Frontier as its remedy buyer (Bloomberg Law; JetBlue/Frontier agreement) (news.bloomberglaw.com). Southwest is third because it has prior LGA slot-acquisition experience and a low-fare brand, but it already has more LGA scale than Frontier or JetBlue (Southwest release; FAA holder totals) (prnewswire.com).

American is the main legacy-airline risk: its CEO said American has a long history of being aggressive when assets become available, and it can pay, but its 327 existing LGA slots are a poor fit with the regulator's competition story (The Points Guy; FAA holder totals) (thepointsguy.com). Other airline(s) has real weight because Porter publicly said it was interested in more LGA slots depending on the allocation process, and the Port Authority cited several airlines interested in expanding or entering its airport markets, including Allegiant and Frontier (Bloomberg Law) (news.bloomberglaw.com). United is low because its CEO said he did not expect United to participate in consolidation for the foreseeable future; Delta is lower because it is the largest LGA incumbent; Alaska is low because it is small enough to clear concentration concerns but has no clear public signal or obvious need for a whole Terminal A package (The Points Guy; FAA holder totals) (thepointsguy.com).

My model uses four process scenarios. I put 55% on one airline receiving most or all usable slots, 28% on a split sale or negotiated multi-carrier allocation, 12% on an FAA/Port Authority-shaped reallocation with partial retirement, and 5% on full retirement, no clear allocation, or annulment before May 2, 2028. In the single-winner case I used conditional shares of Frontier 49%, JetBlue 20%, Southwest 13%, American 9%, Other 7%, United 1.5%, Delta 0.3%, and Alaska 0.2%. In the split case I used inclusion rates of Frontier 70%, JetBlue 50%, Southwest 40%, American 30%, Other 36%, United 12%, Delta 5%, and Alaska 5%. In the regulator-shaped case I used inclusion rates of Frontier 55%, JetBlue 30%, Southwest 20%, American 6%, Other 33%, United 5%, Delta 2%, and Alaska 4%. The resulting marginals do not sum to 100% because more than one airline can resolve YES.

What's non-obvious

The obvious reading is that the highest cash bidder wins. That is wrong. The estate is trying to maximize recoveries, but the asset only works if the FAA confirms the slot transfer and the Port Authority provides terminal access; both have already put competition, low-fare service, and Terminal A operations into the record (Federal Register/Justia; Port Authority response; Bloomberg Law) (regulations.justia.com). That is why Delta is near zero and why American is below JetBlue and Southwest despite being able to bid more.

The question says slot pairs, but the clean official pre-shutdown data lists Spirit with 22 slots, not 22 pairs (FAA holder totals) (faa.gov). DOT describes a slot pair as two slots, and The Points Guy reported that 22 LGA slots translate to roughly a dozen daily flights, so I treat the resolution as control of at least one usable arrival/departure pair from Spirit's former LGA portfolio, not as 22 separate round trips (DOT slot award; The Points Guy) (transportation.gov).

Limitations

The largest gap is sealed bidding. The June 30 final bid deadline had passed by July 5, 2026, but I could not verify a public qualified-bid list, stalking-horse notice, bid amount, auction result, FAA transfer confirmation, DOT order, or final sale order; the public calendar still pointed to a July 9 auction and July 10 target auction-results notice (Spirit bidding procedures) (documents.elevenflo.com). If Frontier did not submit a qualified bid, Frontier would fall sharply and JetBlue, Southwest, American, and Other would rise.

The second gap is legal and operational. The court can approve sale procedures, but it cannot force FAA confirmation or Port Authority terminal access; if the agencies insist on one low-fare Terminal A tenant, Frontier rises, while if they allow a money-maximizing sale with limited conditions, American and JetBlue rise (Federal Register/Justia; Port Authority response) (regulations.justia.com). The third gap is the retirement path: the FAA has an explicit mechanism to retire surrendered, withdrawn, or unassigned operating authorizations until hourly totals reach 71, so a low-recovery or no-airline-control outcome is possible even though it is not my base case (Federal Register/Justia) (regulations.justia.com).