The US Federal Aviation Administration said this week it is inclined to support JetBlue’s purchase of 22 former Spirit Airlines slots at New York-LaGuardia, AirlineGeeks reported on 31 August 2026 from a notice published in the Federal Register that Monday. The agency wrote that the acquisition “ensures that scarce public airspace resources are returned to active commercial service under a proven low-fare business model.”
JetBlue is seeking an exemption from a standing FAA order that normally prohibits the sale or purchase of slots at LaGuardia. AirlineGeeks said regulators found the request appears to meet the conditions for an exemption, provided JetBlue meets minimum usage requirements going forward. “FAA tentatively concludes that granting relief to the carriers from the prohibition on selling and purchasing slots in the order, subject to certain conditions and limitations, is in the public interest,” the agency said in the notice.
If the deal is approved, JetBlue would not be allowed to trade or lease any of Spirit’s former slots until April 2028, according to the same report. JetBlue won a July auction for the package with a bid of $58.5 million, beating Frontier’s $57.5 million offer. Those auction figures are from the July contest; the new fact on 31 August is the FAA’s tentative finding, not the bid itself.
LaGuardia is one of only three fully slot-controlled airports in the United States, alongside New York-JFK and Washington Reagan National, AirlineGeeks noted. Members of the public may comment on the pending sale through 21 September 2026, with a final review after that window. The FAA has not, in the notice summarised on 31 August, named the routes JetBlue would fly with the 22 slots.
Simple Flying, in a separate 31 August Delta network story, quoted JetBlue as saying it is “currently evaluating how best to utilize these slots” and that any LaGuardia expansion tied to them “would start in 2027.” That is JetBlue’s public timing, not an FAA condition. This article does not assign the 22 slots to a city pair.
Any illustration with this story is an original scene of an Airbus A320-family jet in JetBlue colours at a New York airport setting, not a photograph of a Spirit gate or of a specific slot movement, and it is not a registration. Slot ownership is an airport-access right; it is not the same as launching a route. Travellers should not treat the tentative FAA notice as a timetable.
Sources: AirlineGeeks, 31 August 2026; Federal Register notice as reported by AirlineGeeks; Simple Flying (JetBlue timing comment)
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