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 clear favorite to get at least one of Spirit’s former LaGuardia slots, with Southwest, JetBlue, Porter/another unlisted carrier, and American as the main secondary paths.

Context

Spirit stopped operating on May 2, 2026, and the LaGuardia slot package has not yet been finally allocated; the live public process is still a bankruptcy sale process, with court approval to market the slots reported on June 10, 2026, and the sale calendar pointing to final bids on June 30, an auction on July 9, and regulatory approvals targeted by July 17 (AP, May 2, 2026, Bloomberg Law, June 10, 2026, Stretto, June 1, 2026).

The asset is smaller than the question wording suggests. The best official public snapshot shows Spirit with 22 individual LaGuardia slots, not 22 slot pairs, in the FAA Summer 2025 operator totals generated on December 9, 2025; a slot is one takeoff or one landing authorization, so the package supports roughly 11–12 daily round trips if paired efficiently (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals, The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

Evidence

The historical backbone points toward low-fare or limited-incumbent recipients, not the highest-bidding legacy carrier. In the 2011 Delta–US Airways slot swap, DOT required 16 LaGuardia slot pairs to be divested by FAA-run blind auction, limited eligibility to carriers with less than 5% of slots at the airport, and awarded the two LGA bundles to JetBlue and WestJet even though JetBlue bid highest for all three airport bundles in the broader auction (DOT, Aug. 1, 2019 archive of 2011 result). In the 2013 American–US Airways settlement, DOJ required 34 LaGuardia slots plus needed facilities to be transferred to low-cost-carrier purchasers approved by DOJ, with preference for carriers that did not already operate a large share of slots or gates; the LaGuardia divestitures went to Southwest and Virgin America (DOJ, Nov. 12, 2013, DOJ, Apr. 25, 2014). In the ATA bankruptcy analogue, FAA said the operating authorizations themselves could not be sold, but an air carrier acquiring ATA could “stand in the shoes” of ATA and receive 14 LaGuardia slots; Southwest then bid for those 14 slots in bankruptcy (Federal Register, Oct. 31, 2008, Southwest, Nov. 19, 2008).

The current slot-holder table makes the competition issue plain. This is a Summer 2025 cross-section, generated December 9, 2025 at 07:56, in individual slots/operating authorizations; it excludes FAA-held slots and slots held for less than five days, and has N=9 listed operators (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals).

The current regulatory signal is unusually direct. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on May 28, 2026 that Spirit’s former LaGuardia slots should go to another low-fare carrier for the public good, and that retirement of the slots would be a fallback if that could not happen (AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). The FAA’s current LaGuardia order, effective October 27, 2024 through October 24, 2026, keeps the airport at 71 scheduled operating authorizations per hour, applies an 80% use requirement, allows trades and leases only with written FAA confirmation before the effective date, and allows withdrawn, surrendered, or unassigned authorizations to be retired or reallocated by lottery (Federal Register, May 13, 2024). The Port Authority adds a second veto point: it told the bankruptcy court on June 3, 2026 that slots have no intrinsic value without permission to use airport facilities, which cannot simply be auctioned with the slots (The Points Guy, June 9, 2026).

Frontier has the strongest airline-specific evidence. In 2023, JetBlue and Frontier signed a definitive agreement under which Frontier would receive all of Spirit’s LaGuardia holdings, principally six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, if the JetBlue–Spirit merger closed; that agreement was explicitly framed as preserving ultra-low-cost-carrier access at LaGuardia and was subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approval (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023). That prior agreement is not binding now, but it is revealed preference for the exact package. Frontier also fits the FAA’s low-fare screen better than American, Delta, or United, and Spirit’s 22 slots would more than triple Frontier’s listed LaGuardia slot base from 10 to 32 under the FAA Summer 2025 snapshot (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals).

Southwest is second. It is large enough to pay, already operates at LaGuardia, has a 2008–09 bankruptcy path into LaGuardia through ATA, and was a low-cost-recipient in the American–US Airways remedy; the negative is that 70 existing slots make it less clean as a limited-incumbent remedy than Frontier, JetBlue, Porter, or another smaller carrier (Southwest, Nov. 19, 2008, DOJ, Apr. 25, 2014, FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). JetBlue is plausible because it is New York-focused, has only 31 listed LaGuardia slots, and won LaGuardia remedy slots in 2011; the negative is the fresh antitrust memory from the blocked JetBlue–Spirit merger, where DOJ argued that eliminating Spirit would raise fares and reduce choices (DOT, Aug. 1, 2019 archive of 2011 result, DOJ, Jan. 16, 2024). American is the main high-bidder risk, and The Points Guy quoted CEO Robert Isom in April saying American has a long history of being aggressive when assets become available; but American’s 327 listed LaGuardia slots and legacy-carrier status make the public-interest story weaker than for Frontier or Southwest (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026, FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals).

Other airline(s) is mostly Porter, with smaller paths for Allegiant, Breeze, Avelo, WestJet, or another entrant. Porter already had 6 listed LaGuardia slots in the FAA Summer 2025 table, and The Points Guy called it a dark horse because U.S. preclearance at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport could make LaGuardia more useful for Porter’s New York flying (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals, The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). Delta is very unlikely because it already held 580 listed slots, or 50.5% of the listed total, and United is unlikely because it is not a low-fare carrier, has less strategic need than American, and its CEO said on May 28, 2026 that United did not expect to participate in consolidation for the foreseeable future (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals, The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

My model has four paths. I put 67% on a single-buyer sale or long lease of the whole portfolio, 17% on a split sale or regulator-shaped bundle process, 8% on an FAA/airport-led reallocation process, and 8% on retirement, unresolved status, or no airline receiving the slots before the resolution deadline. For each airline, I used $P_i = 0.67s_i + 0.17m_i + 0.08r_i$, where $s_i$ is that airline’s chance in a single-buyer sale, $m_i$ is its chance of receiving at least one slot in a split sale, and $r_i$ is its chance in an FAA-led reallocation. The single-buyer weights were Frontier 53%, Southwest 18.5%, JetBlue 12.5%, American 10.5%, Other 4%, United 1%, Delta 0.3%, and Alaska 0.2%. The split/reallocation paths raise the marginal odds for JetBlue, Southwest, Other, and American because prior remedies often used bundles rather than one winner.

What's non-obvious

The obvious read is “auction equals highest bidder.” That is the wrong model. Spirit’s estate can run an auction, but the FAA must confirm transfers, the Port Authority controls usable facilities, and the FAA administrator has already framed the public-interest test as low-fare service or retirement (Federal Register, May 13, 2024, The Points Guy, June 9, 2026, AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). This is why Frontier beats American despite weaker financial firepower.

The second non-obvious point is that “Other airline(s)” is a live outcome, not just a leftover bucket. If the FAA or Port Authority decides the cleanest public-interest answer is limited-incumbent access rather than a pure bankruptcy sale, Porter or another smaller carrier can win a small bundle, much as WestJet did in the 2011 LaGuardia divestiture (DOT, Aug. 1, 2019 archive of 2011 result, The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

Limitations

No public source I found names actual qualified bidders, a stalking-horse bidder, final bid amounts, an FAA confirmation request, or a Port Authority facilities deal as of June 16, 2026. That is the largest missing fact. The June 30 final-bid deadline and July 9 auction should move these probabilities sharply once a real bidder list or winning bid is public (Stretto, June 1, 2026, Bloomberg Law, June 10, 2026).

The main data-quality issue is unit language. The FAA’s official Summer 2025 table and current reporting describe Spirit as holding 22 individual LaGuardia slots, while the question says slot pairs; I forecast the recipient identity, so this changes the scale of the package more than the airline ranking (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals, The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). I treat retirement, no allocation, or annulment as no airline option resolving YES, not as Other airline(s), because the Other option is worded as other airline(s).