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JetBlue Airways has received final Federal Aviation Administration approval to acquire 22 takeoff and landing slots at New York’s LaGuardia Airport from Spirit Airlines, clearing the regulatory hurdle for a $58.5 million purchase made through Spirit’s bankruptcy proceedings. The FAA approved the transfer on Tuesday, October 6, according to an Investing.com report published that day.
The slots give JetBlue additional access to one of the country’s most capacity-constrained airports. The authorization does not itself establish when or on which routes the airline will use them. The FAA’s previously published conditions include a temporary waiver of minimum-use requirements through April 2027 and a prohibition on leasing or trading the acquired slots to another carrier until after April 2028.
Bankruptcy auction led to the transfer
Spirit and JetBlue jointly petitioned the FAA and the Transportation Department on July 23 for an exemption allowing the sale. LaGuardia’s slot rules generally prohibit carriers from buying or selling operating authorizations, so the purchase required a separate regulatory exemption even after the bankruptcy court approved the asset transfer.
Spirit stopped passenger operations on May 2, 2026, and began winding down and liquidating its business. The FAA’s August notice said the bankruptcy court approved competitive bidding procedures for Spirit’s assets on June 22 and approved the slot transfer on July 22, subject to regulatory clearance. JetBlue emerged as the successful bidder in the court-supervised auction.
Investing.com reported the purchase price as $58.5 million. The slots represent scarce operating capacity rather than an increase in LaGuardia’s overall flight limits: the FAA’s earlier notice said the transfer would not raise the airport’s authorized number of operations.
Conditions govern use and future transfers
In its August notice, the FAA proposed allowing JetBlue to hold the slots while imposing restrictions intended to keep them in airline service. The agency said JetBlue would not be able to lease or trade them to another carrier until after April 2028, and would be barred from selling them outright. The October report described the restriction as binding under the final approval.
The FAA also proposed waiving the slots’ minimum-use requirements through April 2027 to give JetBlue time to start or expand service. That relief is temporary; the slots remain subject to FAA oversight and the agency’s authority to withdraw operating rights for non-use or when it considers withdrawal to be in the public interest.
LaGuardia’s operating controls date to an FAA order issued in 2006. Under the order extended in June 2026, the airport has a limit of 71 scheduled operations per hour during controlled periods, and carriers generally must use their authorizations at least 80% of the time, subject to defined exceptions. The order is set to expire on October 28, 2028.
FAA cited competition and capacity
In the August notice, the FAA said its tentative view was that transferring the slots to JetBlue served the public interest. The agency reasoned that returning Spirit’s unused capacity to service could strengthen competition at LaGuardia without increasing the airport’s total operations. It also noted that JetBlue would remain below a 5% share of LaGuardia’s slot holdings after the transfer.
Those findings were part of the agency’s proposed decision, not a report of airline performance or a guarantee of lower fares. The carriers had argued in their petition that the transfer would help a smaller incumbent compete in a heavily restricted New York market. The final approval resolves the federal authorization question, but the available reporting does not provide a detailed account of the FAA’s final reasoning or responses to individual public comments.
Schedule details remain to come
The additional authorizations provide JetBlue with the opportunity to add or adjust LaGuardia service, but neither the FAA notice nor the October 6 report specifies the routes, flight times or start dates the airline plans to use. The near-term operational milestone is the end of the minimum-use waiver in April 2027, when the temporary flexibility is scheduled to lapse.
The transfer also leaves LaGuardia’s airport-wide capacity limits in place. The slots can support JetBlue’s presence at the airport, but the FAA’s rules continue to determine when and how the operating rights may be used. No further schedule announcement was included in the reporting available for this article.
