All Spirit Airlines wants is a lot of money for its coveted landing rights at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA).
The bankrupt carrier close commercial operations May 2 wants auctions its 22 takeoff and landing rightsalso known as “slots”, on July 9. According to the airline’s estimates, the portfolio could reach at least $87 million.
Not so fast.
Spirit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the agency that operates LGA) are at odds over the auction.
“The slot machines themselves have no intrinsic value without the appropriate permission of the airport sponsor to use particular facilities at the airport, which are not and could not be auctioned along with the slot machines themselves,” the Port told a bankruptcy court June 3 in an objection to the auction.
Related: What are airport slots and how do they affect your flights?
The Port went further to say that the slots themselves are not “fungible or transferable.”
The spirit believes the opposite. In a response filed Monday, the airline asked the court to dismiss the Port’s objection.
“The central assertion of the Port Authority: that [Spirit is] blithely unaware of the regulatory framework governing LGA slots, is flatly false, something the Port Authority could have known instantly if they had simply called to ask,” the airline wrote.
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Spirit added that it is working closely with all “relevant federal authorities” on the proposed transaction.
Historically, airlines have traded and sold slots at LGAs with federal and Port Authority approvals. american airlines transferred slots at LGA and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to JetBlue Airways under its former Northeast Alliance in 2021 and 2022 without objection from the Port. And in 2011, Delta Air Lines and US Airways, now part of American Airlines, agreed to a major slot swap deal in which the former got 132 slot pairs at LGA in exchange for transferring the latter 42 slot pairs at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
Both transactions required regulatory approval and, in the case of Delta and US Airways, some modifications to comply with antitrust rules. But otherwise, they proceeded without hindrance.
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said in May that he wants another budget airline to acquire Spirit’s LGA slots.
Frontier Airlines is widely considered a strong candidate for Spirit’s LGA slots, but in reality any airline could bid, including American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines.
A bankruptcy court hearing on the proposed LGA slot auction is scheduled for June 10.
