Not exactly a lottery win, but a bankruptcy sale: JetBlue is the winner of 12 slot pairs formerly used by Spirit Airlines—enough for 12 round-trip flights—at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
The slots are very valuable because LaGuardia has strict limits on numbers of flights. JetBlue also hopes to take over the space Spirit had been using, the airport’s historic Art Deco Terminal A, originally built for PanAm’s flying boats in the 1930s.
The terminal switch would be significant for JetBlue, which has limited its LaGuardia operations because Terminal B, where it currently has a few daily flights, has higher charges, and JetBlue is trying to keep costs down in a drive to return to profitability.
JetBlue has moved to fill Spirit’s place in a number of places, including ramping up its operations at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, long a major Spirit base.
If the LaGuardia move wins court and regulatory approval, operations would start early next year.
Image: Terminal A, LaGuardia (epicgenius/Wikimedia Commons)
