Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale International) has been awarded 16 runway timings - enough to add eight daily roundtrips - at New York Newark that were returned by Southwest Airlines in 2019.
The ultra-low-cost carrier fought for the timings (equivalent to slots on slot-controlled airports) in court after the US Department of Transportation initially decided not to reallocate them. As Newark is a Level 2 airport, runway timings are not transferrable. When Southwest decided to leave the airport in 2019, all 32 of its allocated slots were returned to the DOT. The regulator initially planned to reallocate only half of them, leaving the other 16 slots in peak times vacant to assess Newark's capacity.
Spirit Airlines alleged this decision was "arbitrary and capricious" and won its case in court, forcing the DOT to reallocate the remaining 16 peak timings. The regulator subsequently decided to prioritise LCCs in the reallocation as they could "effectively step into Southwest's shoes".
JetBlue Airways also applied for all 16 timings, while Alaska Airlines sought just four. The latter was dismissed by the DOT from the start.
"Spirit's business model enables it to operate at a significantly lower cost per seat, allowing it to make significantly lower fares available to many more customers in the market. It has a track record of entering and staying in hub markets (including at Newark) and offers a product offering that can appeal to a broad cross-section of consumers," the DOT determined. It added that JetBlue would not offer such low fares and was already well-established in the New York metro area thanks to its base at New York JFK.
The DOT set additional requirements for Spirit related to operational performance.
"Given the recent major industry-wide service disruptions that have caused significant harm to consumers, and Spirit's higher relative number of customer complaints received by the department, as a condition of this award and maintaining these operating authorisations we require that Spirit report to the department on its customer service performance," the regulator ordered.
The slots were originally returned by United Airlines as a condition for its merger with Continental Airlines in 2010. United continues to dominate at Newark with a 65.7% market share by departure capacity and 369 daily departures on average, the ch-aviation capacities module shows. Spirit Airlines currently has a 5.8% market share by capacity and operates, on average, 23.6 daily departures. With the additional eight daily frequencies, the ULCC will become the second-largest operator at Newark by both capacity and frequencies, overtaking American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and JetBlue.
