JetBlue Wins Spirit’s LaGuardia Landing Slots, Will Move Operations To The Marine Air Terminal
One of Spirit’s most valuable assets is its coveted landing slots at LaGuardia. In the US, DC’s Reagan National Airport, JFK, and LaGuardia are slot-controlled, making it very difficult to gain the right to operate flights from those airports. United is partnering with JetBlue primarily to get access to a limited number of JetBlue’s slots at JFK.
The DOT insisted that Spirit’s 12 round-trip slots had to be sold to a low-cost carrier, and JetBlue narrowly beat out Frontier with a bid of $58.5 million versus $57.5 million.
JetBlue has told staff that they also plan on moving to LaGuardia’s historic Terminal A Marine Air Terminal, which was Spirit’s base there. There are no lounges there, but it’s a convenient terminal that will cost less for JetBlue to operate out of than Terminal B. The airline has massively shrunk at LaGuardia, so gaining space in the cheaper Marine Air Terminal should help profitability there.
Where do you hope to see JetBlue fly to with Spirit’s LaGuardia slots?
