JetBlue has managed to win the lion’s share of slot pairs left over by the collapse of ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City. JetBlue will be allowed to operate nearly double the number of flights that it currently does out of the capacity-constrained airport.
LaGuardia is one of only three slot-controlled airports in the United States, meaning that airlines can’t just simply start a new service to and from the airport, but must first obtain a pair of so-called ‘slots’ denoting specific takeoff and landing times.
Slots are used at airports where capacity is so constrained that allowing unregulated growth would, in the FAA’s words, create “regular and significant flight delays,” and infrastructure improvements to increase capacity are not feasible in the near term.
The FAA officially calls slot-controlled airports Level 3 facilities, and along with LaGuardia (LGA), the only two other Level 3 airports in the U.S. are New York JFK and Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA).
According to the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, as recently as January 2026, Spirit Airlines was utilising 18 slot pairs at LaGuardia per day.
On Monday, JetBlue told staffers in an internal memo that it had managed to acquire 12 of these slots. The airline was already utilising up to 13 slots per day prior to this acquisition. It remains unclear which airline has won the outstanding six slot pairs.
Before it can start using the extra slots, JetBlue has to get final regulatory approvals, and the airline doesn’t plan to start utilizing the additional slots until 2027.
When JetBlue does expand its presence at LaGuardia, the airline says it wants to move into Spirit’s former home at the airport, the Art Deco Terminal A, which is also known as the Marine Air Terminal.
JetBlue sought these slots at LaGuardia despite the fact that last month, the airline announced it planned to shrink its presence at the airport by closing down a maintenance facility.
The administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Bryan Bedford, said he wanted Spirit’s slots at LGA to go to another low-cost carrier or be left open in order to reduce congestion and delays at LaGuardia.
“As long as the slots are going to a low-fare airline and for the public good, the FAA and DOT would support that,” Bedford said in May.
Bedford did not say which airlines he considered were ‘low-cost.’
Spirit leased some slot pairs it was using. There’s not another winner outstanding… was JetBlue except for maybe 1 pair if they didn’t want it (the docket says it is 22 slots so 11 pairs that NK had for sale).
I believe JetBlue got all the 22 slots from Spirit for a winning bid of $58.5M . Frontier was the runner up bid of $57.5M. Should B6 fail to follow thru, the slots go to Frontier. The wildcard is what will JetBlue do with these new slots?