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 most likely recipient because the same LaGuardia package was already earmarked for Frontier in the 2023 JetBlue-Spirit remedy and FAA leadership is now steering the slots toward a low-fare carrier (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023; AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026).

Context

Spirit announced an immediate wind-down on May 2, 2026, and cancelled its flights; as of May 29, 2026, the LaGuardia asset process is still an auction, not a final allocation (Spirit SEC exhibit, May 2, 2026). The reported sale package is 22 LaGuardia slots, scheduled for a July 9, 2026 auction, with the winner chosen by the highest and otherwise best offer, nearly $87 million of April 2026 value, and bankruptcy-court approval still needed before use (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

The best official slot snapshot I found is the FAA Summer 2025 operator total file, generated December 9, 2025 at 07:56, with status date 2025 current and future; it counts operating authorizations, excludes FAA-held slots and slots held fewer than five days, and lists Spirit with 22 LGA slots (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). The client says slot pairs, but the FAA unit is one takeoff or landing authorization; 22 slots imply about 11 to 12 daily round trips depending on timing, and the identity forecast is not very sensitive to that unit mismatch (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). LGA slots are not normal property: the FAA order runs through October 24, 2026, caps scheduled operations at 71 per hour, imposes an 80% use rule, allows trades and leases for consideration, and requires written FAA confirmation before a transfer takes effect (Federal Register LGA order, May 13, 2024).

Evidence

The historical backbone points toward low-cost or limited-incumbent carriers. In the Delta-US Airways slot swap, DOT/FAA required divestiture of 16 LaGuardia slot pairs in two bundles, limited bidders to carriers with less than 5% of the relevant airport's slots, and awarded the LGA bundles to JetBlue and WestJet; seven carriers bid, including Allegiant, Frontier, Sun Country, Southwest, and Spirit (DOT, Aug. 1, 2019 retrospective). In the American-US Airways merger settlement, DOJ required 34 LaGuardia slots and related facilities to go to low-cost carrier purchasers, with preference for airlines that did not already operate a large share of slots or gates (DOJ, Nov. 12, 2013). That is only a small reference class, but it is the right one: scarce LGA access moved under regulatory pressure.

The closest analogue is even stronger. When JetBlue tried to buy Spirit, JetBlue and Frontier signed a definitive agreement under which JetBlue would transfer all Spirit LaGuardia holdings to Frontier, principally six Marine Air Terminal gates and 22 takeoff and landing slots, subject to Port Authority and FAA/DOT approvals (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023). That deal died with the blocked JetBlue-Spirit merger, but it is a revealed-preference signal: Frontier wanted the same package, JetBlue accepted Frontier as the remedy buyer, and the competition story was ultra-low-cost access at LGA (JetBlue/Frontier, June 1, 2023).

The concentration data also disfavors Delta and, less strongly, American. The FAA Summer 2025 operator file has 1,148 listed LGA slots across 9 operators, with this carrier mix and shares calculated from that file (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals):

The live regulatory signal points the same way. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on May 27, 2026 that the former Spirit LGA slots should go to a low-fare airline if that serves the public good, and that the slots could be retired if a low-cost carrier cannot acquire them (AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). I read that as a soft constraint on the bankruptcy auction, not a final order. It reduces the value of a Delta or American high bid because a bid that cannot get FAA/DOT comfort may not be the best executable bid.

The main counterweight is money. Frontier fits the policy goal best, but it ended Q1 2026 with $974 million of total liquidity and a $68 million adjusted net loss, so an $87 million slot package is material and management has reason to stay disciplined (Frontier Q1 2026 results, May 5, 2026; The Points Guy, May 28, 2026). Southwest is the cleanest high-capacity alternative: it is a prior LGA divestiture winner, already has 70 listed LGA slots, and ended Q1 2026 with $3.3 billion of cash and a $1.5 billion revolver (DOJ, Nov. 12, 2013; FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals; Southwest Q1 2026 results, Apr. 22, 2026). JetBlue has a New York and Florida network rationale and $2.4 billion of Q1 2026 liquidity, but its 2024 attempt to buy Spirit was blocked on competition grounds, which weakens the political case for letting JetBlue replace Spirit at LGA (JetBlue Q1 2026 results, Apr. 28, 2026; DOJ, Jan. 16, 2024). American has cash and public appetite for asset opportunities, but its 327 listed LGA slots and non-low-cost identity keep it behind Frontier, Southwest, and JetBlue in my forecast (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026; FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals; American Q1 2026 results).

My model is a four-path tree. I put 68% on a single approved package sale, because the public sale reporting uses a single winner and the package is small; 17% on a split sale or formal secondary lease, because prior LGA remedies used commercially viable bundles; 7% on an FAA-pool or regulator-shaped reallocation after a sale problem; and 8% on retirement, delay, or no airline allocation by the May 2, 2028 deadline. In the single-package path, my conditional winner shares are Frontier 42%, Southwest 22%, JetBlue 16%, American 13%, Other 4%, United 1.5%, Delta 1%, and Alaska 0.5%. In the split path, the at-least-one-slot chances are Frontier 60%, Southwest 45%, JetBlue 38%, American 30%, Other 35%, United 9%, Delta 5%, and Alaska 4%. In the FAA-pool path, the at-least-one-slot chances are Frontier 40%, Southwest 25%, JetBlue 18%, American 5%, Other 50%, United 3%, Delta 1%, and Alaska 3%. The formula is $P_i = 0.68S_i + 0.17M_i + 0.07R_i$, where $S_i$ is the single-package chance, $M_i$ is the split-path chance, and $R_i$ is the regulatory-reallocation chance for airline $i$; the 8% no-airline path contributes zero to every listed airline.

What's non-obvious

The auction headline overstates the role of raw cash. The FAA has to confirm slot trades and leases in writing, the order allows lottery reallocation of withdrawn or surrendered operating authorizations, and Bedford has publicly framed the public interest as low-fare replacement or retirement (Federal Register LGA order, May 13, 2024; AirlineGeeks, May 28, 2026). That is why Frontier can outrank American even though American can probably bid more.

Other airline(s) is not just a rounding error. WestJet won one of the 2011 LGA divestiture bundles, and Porter already had 6 listed LGA slots in the FAA Summer 2025 file (DOT, Aug. 1, 2019 retrospective; FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). The Points Guy identified Porter as a dark horse because U.S. preclearance at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport could make LGA more useful for Porter, and Breeze, Allegiant, Avelo, Sun Country, Air Canada, or WestJet could also qualify as non-listed recipients if the package is split or reallocated (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026).

Limitations

No public qualified-bidder list or stalking-horse bid is available yet, and I could not verify a full bid-procedures order saying whether partial bids are allowed; that matters because one required package would lower the multi-YES probabilities, while a bundle process would raise them (The Points Guy, May 28, 2026; Bloomberg Law, May 28, 2026). The freshest official FAA carrier table I found is Summer 2025, generated December 9, 2025, not a post-shutdown Summer 2026 table, so it is a concentration baseline rather than a live bid list (FAA Summer 2025 LGA operator totals). The biggest swing factor is whether the FAA/DOT low-fare signal becomes a hard constraint; if it does, Frontier and Other low-fare carriers rise, and American, Delta, and United fall. If it stays soft, Southwest, JetBlue, and American rise at Frontier's expense.