By Dietrich Knauth
NEW YORK, July 20 (Reuters) – JetBlue won an auction for bankrupt Spirit Airlines’ takeoff and landing slots at New York’s LaGuardia airport for a purchase price of $58.5 million, according to court documents.
• Spirit is selling the right to 22 daily departures and landings at the busy and highly-regulated airport
• The sale would allow JetBlue to make 11 additional round-trip flights at the airport
• Frontier was the second-highest bidder at $57.5 million
• Spirit will seek approval of the sale at a Wednesday bankruptcy court hearing in White Plains, New York
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration restricts total number of flights at three busy airports in the U.S., including LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
• JetBlue already had 31 slots at LaGuardia and Frontier had 4, according to FAA data
• Spirit shut down earlier this year, after rising fuel costs derailed its planned bankruptcy restructuring
• Spirit filed for bankruptcy in August 2025, one year after a previous bankruptcy failed to turn its business around
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nick Zieminski)
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