JetBlue will pay $58.5 million to take over Spirt Airlines’ slots at LaGuardia. The carrier was named the winning bidder, besting runner-up Frontier Airlines by $1 million.
The deal will see 22 slots – 11 each for arrival and departure – transferred to the New York-based carrier, pending final approval by the bankruptcy court.
The transfer would allow JetBlue to nearly double its operations at LaGuardia. It holds 31 slots currently, allowing for 15 round trip operations. This week’s schedule shows 11-13 daily departures per data from Cirium, depending on the day, connecting passengers to Nantucket, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and West Palm Beach.
The boost in capacity will be something of a rebound for the carrier. A couple years ago it borrowed slots from American Airlines as part of their Northeast Alliance cooperative operations, boosting its presence at LaGuardia. That deal was struck down by the courts, causing the slots to be returned and JetBlue to trim operations. So was the effort to buy Spirit. These slots come at quite a discount to that proposed merger price tag.
Notably, JetBlue operates from the new Central Terminal area while Spirit operated from the Marine Air Terminal. Some adjustments will likely be necessary to ensure the consolidated operations work given gate and space limitations. CNBC reports that JetBlue informed its employees it anticipates moving (back) to the Marine Air Terminal to address this challenge.
The transaction also aligns with the goals of the FAA. Administrator Bryan Bedford previously expressed a preference that the slots would transfer to a smaller carrier, ensuring competition at LaGuardia.
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