JetBlue is the high bidder for Spirit Airlines slots that allow for up to 12 daily flights at congested New York LaGuardia airport. They bid $58.5 million, beating Frontier which bid $57.5 million for 12 daily departures and 10 arrivals. There were 5 other, lower bidders as well.
The airport authority insists that the winning bidder also lease the Marine Air Terminal, which Spirit Airlines abandoned. That appears to be JetBlue’s plan, and could make offering service from the airport more economical.
Final approval could come by August 5, though closing could stretch to late October. The transfer will require FAA approval and the terminal negotiations.
When Spirit Airlines valued its assets for liquidation, they listed these LaGuardia slots as worth $86.746 million, so JetBlue’s bid is about 33% below that appraisal. It’s not just that the slots are worth less – the FAA Administrator said that if they didn’t go to a low fare carrier, that the agency could just retire them. That created regulatory uncertainty which reduced the value of competitive bidding.
The challenge for JetBlue is that the airport is so expensive that their CEO says they can’t make money there. According to Joanna Geraghty,
It is incredibly expensive to operate out of LaGuardia, so much so that we had 50 flights at one point, and we have 13 now.
Now, most of the 50-to-13 decline came from the end of the Northeast Alliance and American reclaiming the slots it had supplied to JetBlue. However, JetBlue did eliminate five routes and reduce three more in 2024, and later abandoned New York LaGuardia – Boston saying the economics no longer worked. And JetBlue is flying their best routes from the airport. More slots means more marginal routes.
JetBlue reports that the airport costs them over $40 per passenger. I have to wonder if a move to the Marine Air Terminal will get them lower costs that help operating economics at the margin. Frontier most certainly thought that it would, or else they wouldn’t have bid so aggressively.
So what could JetBlue be thinking here?
- This is a once in a generation opportunity. Large blocks of New York airport slots almost never become available. JetBlue grows from 31 to 53 individual slots, a 71% increase in a single shot, although it will still only control about 4.6% of New York LaGuardia.
- Lower their cost base with the Marine Air Terminal. Moving both the existing 13 departures and up to 12 new ones to Spirit’s six-gate facility could spread station and lease costs over roughly 25 departures and eliminate JetBlue’s Terminal B allocation.
- They’re getting too good a deal to pass up. Bryan Bedford’s position that the slots have to go to low cost competitors likely capped the price, so they’re winning at a better price than the slots would normally trade for.
- Lease or re-sell some slots later. If the plan doesn’t work, there’s probably a good market to offload the slots themselves (though perhaps not the terminal real estate).
Here are the 22 slot times:
| No. | Slot Time (ET) | Operation | Days of Operation |
| 1 | 0600 | Departure | All |
| 2 | 0630 | Departure | All |
| 3 | 0730 | Arrival | All |
| 4 | 0830 | Departure | All |
| 5 | 0900 | Arrival | All |
| 6 | 0930 | Departure | All |
| 7 | 1000 | Arrival | All |
| 8 | 1030 | Departure | All |
| 9 | 1100 | Arrival | All |
| 10 | 1130 | Departure | All |
| 11 | 1200 | Arrival | All |
| 12 | 1230 | Departure | All |
| 13 | 1400 | Arrival | All |
| 14 | 1530 | Arrival | All |
| 15 | 1530 | Departure | All |
| 16 | 1630 | Departure | All |
| 17 | 1730 | Arrival | All |
| 18 | 1830 | Departure | All |
| 19 | 1900 | Arrival | All |
| 20 | 1930 | Arrival | All |
| 21 | 1930 | Departure | All |
| 22 | 2030 | Departure | All |
Customers, of course, wouldn’t find themselves in the new Central Terminal – with its water feature and American Express, Chase, and Capital One lounges.
Isn’t there an antitrust problem with all this, though? When JetBlue was buying Spirit Airlines outright, they did a deal with Frontier to divest Spirit’s New York LaGuardia slots and gates – they saw Spirit’s LaGuardia flights as an antitrust problem that could block the deal.
Of course, things have changed in two ways. First, they’re no longer eliminating a competitor at New York LaGuardia – Spirit Airlines has already ceased operations. And second, the Trump administration’s stance on antitrust is likely to be very different than what was experienced during the Biden administration. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby even pitched the President on his carrier acquiring American Airlines!
I’d imagine they’d say it was the ‘art of the deal’ (or, simply ‘lying’ to get a better one.)
Flying LGA/FLL 11 times a day they won’t. The issue is that flying LGA to any other non Florida city only 1-2 times a day gets you the Frontier Airlines crowd. Maybe a good, true first class cabin can solve some of this.
They’re probably screwed either way.
@GaryLeff, there was never an antitrust problem with JetBlue getting Spirit slots at LGA. JetBlue divested Spirit slots after the Biden DOJ brought the antitrust case in order to convince the Biden DOJ to drop the case, but the DOJ was obsessed with Florida, so they didn’t budge.
I wonder if this means if JetBlue will bid for gates B37 and B38 at BOS. Before the Spirit liquidation, they already took over gates B39 and B40 from Spirit at Logan (they were renamed to C23B and C23A). The only other airline that is adjacent to those two Spirit gates other than JetBlue is Southwest, although United is close enough, so off chance they try to get them?
@George Romey — To borrow from our friend @DesertGhost: “And you’ve been CEO of how many airlines…?” /s
B6’s problem is that they are a NY and FL airline without enough NY and FL credit card revenue to offset their operations. Spirit already tried to operate a Florida shuttle from LGA TA and failed. What’s B6 going to do – operate a more expensive Florida shuttle than Spirit did and hope that’s a winning formula? Mini Mint (when it comes…) is really going to be meaningfully better than the Big Front Seat on a 2.5-3 hour flight?
As @Gary reminds us, the new LGA TB and TC include far walks. TA is the perfect shuttle terminal – curbside to gateside in minutes. The problem is that a Florida flight has such a heavy leisure clientele and TA is not a pleasant terminal to spend much time in – and leisure families tend to get to the airport early because they have bags and kids and such. So despite the beautiful WPA murals, it just looks and feels dumpy.
I still think there was a lane here for AA to have tried to use TA as a real business shuttle terminal to BOS / DCA / ORD. Could have made the whole terminal some combo of an Admirals Club / Provisions vibe with the new really nice looking design scheme and every passenger getting free coffee / snacks / whatever. Run frequent airside 5 minute ride shuttle buses to connect between TA and TB for folks transferring.
That would have created a premium aura around AA which it desperately needs to grow in NYC to compete against DL and UA. Flying AA out of NYC is actually pleasant with LGA TB and JFK T8 (the renovation of T8 continues to look very nice – the Eataly in particular is lovely). But they could use more of those NYC credit card dollars to meaningfully compete and grow their international network.
Delta, objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear!
first, just because UA proposed something doesn’t mean it was anything close to becoming reality.
but there likely will be no antitrust concerns because the feds desperately want to keep a low cost player – and a geniuine competitor to DL and UA – in NYC.
Peter is mostly right but the real problem is the 800 pound gorilla that sits on everything B6 tries to do except FLL – Delta.
B6 hasn’t successfully competed against DL for most of its quarter century; any routes they add will be to markets DL (and likely AA) serve and if not both will start them shortly.
NYC is just not a market where little guys can succeed unless they fly low frequencies at low fares – neither of which is a success against stronger and larger carriers.
Given that B6 is cutting several JFK and BOS routes, this just means shifting a few resources over to LGA where they will be even more stretched trying to defend another market where they are the underdog.
let’s see where it all goes but this seems like another exercise in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
If they fly ATL-LGA I’ll become a Jet Blue flyer.
When you lift a story from Enilria I get pissed, no credit, same verbiage. Come on Gary we expect more than that, even behind a paywall & you managed to do it. Sigh, that’s why I subscribe to him, he’s got ethics. Sigh.
@RWA380 – Are you kidding me?
1. I believe JonNYC was actually first noting that JetBlue won the slot auction (which I saw after writing this, see https://x.com/xJonNYC/status/2079188198521991618 posted before 9am Eastern)
2. It was on CNBC before I posted, which I linked to
3. I saw Enilria sent something out after I had written this (I scheduled it to post about 90 minutes after it was written .. my usual slots are to post at 8am, 10am and 1158am Eastern and 234p and 504p Eastern so I plugged this into 234p)
4. When I see something on Enilria first, I credit them. Here are 100 times I’ve credited Enilria https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=site%3Aviewfromthewing.com+%22enilria%22
What do you think I got from Enilria on this story? That JetBlue can’t make money at LaGuardia? I literally linked to where I’ve written about that, from their CEO’s mouth, months ago.
In any case if I had gotten anything from Enilria why *wouldn’t I* give credit there? I am hard pressed to think of anyone in this space who goes further in giving credit to others where appropriate?
“12 daily departures and 10 arrivals”
OK, I’m stupid. But do you drive 2 planes a day down the highway from another airport? Serious question. How do thiscwork?
@Gary Leff — Bah! Nice inside-baseball ya got goin on there! What’s cookin’ for 504p EST?
Just flying to and from Florida won’t cut it. Needs to leverage the slots with UA tie in.
All the dynamics would change if B6 joined an airline alliance… do I see a Star in the horizon??
@1990 – today’s roundup post, that hasn’t gone yet
@Gary Leff — Giddy-up!
@This comes to mind – that’s a great question, and an obvious one that i should have explained!
A scheduled arrival after 10 p.m. doesn’t require a slot, since controls are only in place until 9:59 p.m. So two planes arrive after 10, overnight at LaGuardia, and leave the next morning. (You’ll see there are 6 and 630am departure slots which would be planes overnighting for sure).
@Gary Leff — Yeehaw! It’s alive!
Where is New York Attorney General Letitia James when you need her?
Watch Alaska Airlines coming back to LaGuardia in 2028! It should demand a lot of money for its 12 slots from Southwest or JetBlue. If they don’t pay, Alaska could come and use it itself.
In 2018, Alaska leased 20 slots at LGA and DCA for a 10 year term.
This is awesome. When B6 goes Tango Uniform, AA can bid on those slots at a 33% discount! Yay.
@derek — All their hubs are beyond the perimeter restrictions, so Alaska would probably just stick to JFK and EWR, unless they can get waivers.
@Pilot93434 — Are you gonna clean-up after you’ve finished salivating all over the place?
Pilot 93…
AA can’t figure out how to use the LGA or JFK slots it has. and they get less per seat mile than DL from those airports.
Thank you, Gary Leff, for answering the question posed by another befuddled reader who was confused by the imbalance of “12 daily departures and 10 arrivals.” [You responded that scheduled arrivals after 10 pm don’t require a slot.] I’m glad I wasn’t the only one confused by this…
If 4.6% of a single airport would generate antitrust concerns, then everything does. It’s not monopolistic practices when margins are razor thin. Go after tech then we can talk. But then again, the leftists who cry about this also support government grocery stores in NYC, you know, the other industry with 1% profit margins…so their arguments are disingenuous, they just hate capitalism.
@Mantis — “Go after tech”… Yes, please. Majority of voters certainly agree, may even be a 90-10 issue; but, most of our politicians (Rs and Corp-Dems), seem to be in the pockets of Big Tech, AI, etc., selling the rest of us out. So, why do you whine about progressives, who actually want to reign-in big tech? Lina Khan seemed to get it, but she’s out, now.
As for your needlessly attacking our beloved NYC mayor, as it relates to this topic (which, technically, his position doesn’t do anti-trust enforcement, but, ok, whatever), is it just a bigotry thing (are you anti-Muslim), or an agism thing (are you anti-Millennial), or is it the his captivating smile and charisma, or is it that he has marketed himself as a “Democratic Socialist” and the word ‘socialism’ scares you (even though everything from public schools and roads to the military is a form of ‘socialized’ capitalism that we all seem to enjoy, unless you’re one of those anarcho-libertarian sovereign-citizen types who doesn’t wanna pay any taxes at all)? Explain yourself, Dr. Toboggan!
Back of an envelope cost per PAX for the 22 slots in question:
= $58.500,000 / (22 slots per day x 150 PAX per flight) x 365 days per year
= $58.500,000 / 1,204,500 PAX per year
= $48.57 per PAX
The above does not reflect the airport fees per passenger (approximately $40 per enplanement); plus the cost of moving from Terminal B to the Marine Terminal (Terminal A); plus the cost of any advertising program to spread the word.
JetBlue needs to pick its next few airports served from LGA very carefully to recoup the $58.5M; it cannot rely solely on Florida. Either leverage its tie-in with UA and/or join an airline alliance to enhance its FF program and credit card sign up rate to offset the cost.
@RWA380
Thank you. Glad I wasn’t the only one wondering about that.
@Paper – there is no meaningful tie-in with UA at LGA. UA runs service to LGA from its hubs (Chicago, Denver, Houston, Washington). B6 runs service to/from Florida with one not quite daily in-season flight to ACK. No one needs to connect at LGA from those UA hubs to get to Florida. So the idea is to leverage the tie-in with UA to get more money and then invest that money at LGA? Clearly they’d be better off continuing to invest in / solidify FLL.
I guess B6 could try to revive the Boston shuttle, but let’s be realistic – Delta has 17 flights a day from BOS-LGA. AA has the service with 8 flights a day. Both have a real network from LGA of connecting flights (DL more than AA). B6 did 6 flights a day from LGA and failed at it – certainly in part because for a leisure airline they only offered connections to Florida, and corporates were certainly not meaningfully contracting with B6 versus DL.
I enjoy flying B6 and would love for them to succeed and stick around, but it’s not going to do that on the back of winning this auction. It’s not realistically going to be able to challenge DL or AA at LGA with a business shuttle service. It’s a leisure airline with a heavy focus in NY/Northeast and Florida. The only realistic place for B6 to fly from LGA is Florida, and now it can theoretically do it with a lower cost structure. I guess it could try to sprinkle in some flights to other Southeast locations or to Caribbean airports with pre-clearance (DL and AA run some of those flights seasonally).
Plus, and maybe more importantly, B6 prevented Frontier from gaining more of a foothold at LGA, and I have to imagine Frontier would definitely have used those slots for NY-Florida routes and tried to undercut B6.
At JFK it’s a different story because it’s a hub and B6 can have 6x daily flights from Boston to connect folks from Boston to their Caribbean destinations, etc.
Bottom line, the FAA wanted LGA TA to be used and now it will be for another short period of time I guess, assuming the transaction closes.
@Peter — Yup, B6 should avoid the NYC–Boston shuttle revival. Beyond the intense airline competition, Amtrak’s Acela is simply better for that route. Downtown-to-downtown train travel is far more reliable and immune to air traffic delays. For LGA, B6 should really just focus on Florida routes (FLL, MCO, specifically). For JFK, transcons and Europe. For FLL, transcons and Latin America. Keep Mint and on-board experience top-notch so travelers prefer it over competition. Consolidate, downsize, stay afloat. (I personally want B6 to stick-around as itself, not become United.)
@1990 – it would be really nice if the northeast corridor had faster trains. But it’s over 4 hours on Amtrak from NYC to BOS assuming no delays. It’s a one hour flight from NYC to BOS, and half of that time is just taxing – it’s like 30-40 minutes in the air.
Let’s say you want to get to BOS for a 9am meeting. You can’t realistically do that with Amtrak – best you can do is the 5:27am that gets in at 9:32am – maybe you can make a 10am meeting. Or you could get the 6 or 7am flight from LGA and land in time to make a 9am meeting. Quite frankly taking a cab to LGA may be more convenient and quicker than trying to get to Penn for a 5:27am train. Let’s say you live on the UES – you’d have to leave your apartment at 4:45 for the train, meanwhile can leave at 5:30a for LGA and easily make a 7am flight. So you’re probably at 3:30h door to door with flying versus 5-5:30h all in with the train – and you lose an hour of work time.
Where Amtrak often works best is the return from DC. Take the morning flight down (less chance of delays first thing), work the day in DC, and then can hop a 6pm Acela home. With evening delays, the Acela ends up taking about the same amount of time as flying and of course is city center to city center. But it says something that the Northeast Regional is often just about as fast as the Acela (usually its a 20-30 minute savings on the Acela on that route – it’s not much).
As for B6 – the problem of course is the big debt wall it has approaching. Can it refinance its way out of it? Can try. But folks usually like to sell a growth story to debt markets, not a consolidate / downsize story. We will see, I suppose – possible B6 gets more favorable treatment from the feds than Spirit did, who knows.
@Peter — Over the years, I’ve taken those various ‘shuttles’ with AA, B6, DL on LGA/JFK/EWR-BOS/DCA, and I mostly remember the delays and cancellations; the Acela has never wronged me, and even when they’re delayed, they send a friendly $75 discount for next time (valid for a year). Not once have any of the airlines given more than a perfunctory, ‘we’re sorry,’ like BP after that oil spill.
As for the financials, just sincerely hoping the B6 ‘Jet Forward’ strategy works for them; otherwise, it’ll be NK all over again, but worse. Then, the further consolidation to a Big-3 oligopoly amplifies.
Pardon me, I meant to add ‘UA’ to that list, specifically for EWR-BOS (haven’t tried EWR-DCA, but have flown EWR-IAD, just not as practical for city-to-city, because IAD is too far away from DC.)
I’ve had some bad delays with the Acela over the years as well… all somewhat luck of the draw depending on the day and the weather. Don’t get me wrong, big Amtrak fan, but still think the best time management strategy is fly out in the morning (less chance of delays) and then Amtrak back to the city if doing a day trip.
Only time I flew EWR-IAD was when I booked an onward ANA F award from IAD to NRT, but that was over a decade ago in ANA’s cubicle box first class. Quite the short flight from EWR-IAD. ANA flight was very nice of course, although accidentally got served an amuse in an Ethiopian airlines glass. The horror!
@Peter — Yes, good strategy (air travel if morning; Acela in evening, prioritizing reliability).
Of course, better lounges at the airports (C1, Amex, SkyClub, AdmiralsClub at each, and Sapphire at BOS) than Union or South stations (Back Bay has nothing), though, their lounge at Moynihan is pretty nice. All said, if reliability is key, going a day early and returning the day after is best, but those extra nights in hotels aren’t ideal, when getting ‘home’ sooner is usually best.
(As for that rather ‘shocking’ ANA faux pas *gasp*, I can only imagine the ‘profuse apologies for the great shame and dishonor’ that the purser must’ve expressed… *full bow*)
Gary….
Err….you know a plane can’t fly if it’s ‘out of balance’ and an arrival/departure schedule must follow the same law. So could you enlighten us on how the two early morning departures are going to fly as JB has no overnight planes with this schedule.
Picard
@George Romey — See. We were talkin’ trains on this post… (not the other one, American And JetBlue Broke Up Three Years Ago—But They’re Facing A Class Action Over Higher Fares And Fighting Each Other For $100 Million, on July 21, 2026.)