We saw Spirit Airlines cease operations early this morning, after losing money for seven years straight, and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice. It goes without saying that Spirit going out of business is a bit of a relief for some of the other airlines in the country that are losing money and struggling, like Frontier and JetBlue.
Along those lines, JetBlue is wasting no time adjusting its route network, in order to fill the void left by Spirit, and hopefully improve its own economics.
In this post:
JetBlue’s crew base resizing gives us a sense of its plans
JonNYC shares how JetBlue has internally revealed plans to resize its flight attendant bases, just hours after Spirit ceased operations. As the airline describes it, it’s taking steps to better align staffing with where flying actually is.
With this, the airline is understandably assigning new hire flight attendants to the bases with the highest demand. The airline is also exploring ways to voluntarily encourage flight attendants to move between bases. The airline also isn’t ruling out forced base movements, but only if other options are exhausted.
JetBlue hasn’t exactly been growing in recent times, so any additions in flying will need to come at the expense of existing flying. That’s why JetBlue’s planned base changes are pretty revealing.
JetBlue has three understaffed bases:
- It wants to grow its Fort Lauderdale (FLL) base by 100%, and it currently has 682 flight attendants
- It wants to grow its San Juan (SJU) base by 100%, and it currently has 228 flight attendants
- It wants to grow its Boston (BOS) base by 10%, and it currently has 1,245 flight attendants
Meanwhile JetBlue has four overstaffed bases:
- It wants to shrink its Orlando (MCO) base by 30%, and it currently has 1,106 flight attendants
- It wants to shrink its Newark (EWR) base by 30%, and it currently has 292 flight attendants
- It wants to shrink its Los Angeles (LAX) base by 30%, and it currently has 265 flight attendants
- It wants to shrink its New York (JFK) base by 10%, and it currently has 2,748 flight attendants
Let me of course emphasize that size of crew bases doesn’t necessarily directly correlate to the amount of flying that will happen. Over time, some bases naturally become overstaffed and understaffed, and there’s more that goes into deciding on crew bases than just the number of nonstop flights from an airport.
How will the competitive dynamics play out in Fort Lauderdale?
Fort Lauderdale was Spirit’s biggest base, so I think it’s the airport that’s going to be most interesting to watch in the coming days and weeks. Here’s a (rough) breakdown of the market share at the airport in 2025:
- Spirit had roughly 30% market share
- JetBlue had roughly 20% market share
- Delta had roughly 15% market share
- Southwest had roughly 12% market share
- United had roughly 9% market share
It has been decades since we’ve seen an airline in the United States just liquidate this way overnight, so I’m curious to see how this situation plays out in Fort Lauderdale. The airport isn’t slot controlled, so instead, it’s just about gate real estate.
Will gates be temporarily allocated to any airline that will add service there, or how do long term gate allocations work in this situation? Do airlines have to submit proposals, and then the airport decides, or…?
As I see it, there are probably two airlines that would be most interested in a significant expansion in Fort Lauderdale:
- JetBlue has a lot to gain in Fort Lauderdale, because its other two hubs are ones where it’s in a second place spot, behind Delta, so being the number one airline at a major airport would be useful (then again, it didn’t exactly serve Spirit that well, given its demise)
- United has long expressed interest in setting up a hub in Florida, and this seems like as good of an opportunity as it’ll get, in terms of getting lots of gates at once; I also have to imagine United CEO Scott Kirby would delight in setting up a base so close to American, given his disdain for the airline (though South Florida is a market where United will have to settle for second place)
- We know that JetBlue and United partner, and there have of course long been rumors of some possible consolidation, so if you combine the presence of JetBlue and Spirit at the airport, we’re looking at around 50% market share, and if you add in United that’s 60% market share, so that could turn into close to a fortress hub overnight
I’d say the cruelest outcome for JetBlue would be if Delta expands its market share there significantly, and makes JetBlue the second place airline in all three of its hubs. But I can’t imagine Delta has that much interest in expanding there (or who knows, maybe it does).
Of course some people will point out “well Spirit was hemorrhaging money, so why would someone want to expand there so much?” Well, with Spirit gone, airlines will have a bit more pricing power there, without having to compete quite so fiercely on price.
Bottom line
With Spirit Airlines ceasing operations, this leaves a huge gap in Fort Lauderdale, where the airline had roughly 30% market share. JetBlue is wasting no time making it clear it wants to grow there, with plans to double its crew base (which doesn’t necessarily mean there will be twice as many flights).
I don’t know how this is going to play out, but it’s going to be fascinating to see. I have to imagine JetBlue isn’t the only airline that might want to grow in Fort Lauderdale, so let’s see what happens…
How do you see the competitive landscape playing out in Fort Lauderdale?
@George.. FLL is now a premium market serving coastal South Florida and wealthy people flying back and fort to NYT and the West Coast. Jetblue has had huge success with Mint service and I can see First Class on Jetblue being very successful.
JetBlue will be filling for bankruptcy in 2027 and need to reorganize (less flights!). Maybe even later this year. It will continue to circle down the drain to insolvency.
Worse, United buys in 2027 making the US commercial landscape even more dark and smelly.
although the internet is fixated with bankruptcy, B6 really has very little unsecured debt that isn't owed to the government - which means little can be discharged in bankruptcy.
the biggest potential in chapter 11 would be to cut employee pay and to reject assets that B6 can't use - potentially include leases for ground and aircraft assets.
The question can JetBlue raise fares? FLL has tended to be low yield. JetBlue does not need to fill seats, the airline needs to fill seats profitably. JetBlue flamed out at MIA.
you can argue that NK pulled down fares at FLL. B6 should be able to get higher yields as long as F9 doesn't come in and tank the market.
I don't think F9 is interested in taking on B6 or the legacies that operate a number of routes that B6 is trying to start.
I'm not of the opinion that UA wants a Florida hub (unless AA abandons MIA!). More online av-geek speculation than anything else.
UA taking NK’s FLL gates would be an operational mess without a gate reshuffle. Best case scenario would be a WN move to T4 and UA takes over B concourse in T1. T1 is best suited to function as a hub for a legacy carrier.
Could, in theory, make T1 *A, T2 DL and partners. T3 OW and B6. T4 everyone else. FLL can’t get the T1-2-3 connectors built fast enough.
As you said, crew base size doesn’t automatically correlate to flying, but there must be some relationship there.
It’s not FLL, but interesting to see how EWR plays out. If B6 draws down, on top of the 32 Spirit flights that operated there, how would those “timings” (I know they’re not slots) be allocated?
Do airlines bid for them? I can’t imagine there’s much appetite to give them to UA, but who else would...
As you said, crew base size doesn’t automatically correlate to flying, but there must be some relationship there.
It’s not FLL, but interesting to see how EWR plays out. If B6 draws down, on top of the 32 Spirit flights that operated there, how would those “timings” (I know they’re not slots) be allocated?
Do airlines bid for them? I can’t imagine there’s much appetite to give them to UA, but who else would want them? WN already closed the station, NK is gone, B6 might reduce flying.
EWR is schedule coordinated which means anybody can choose to add flights within the schedule limits the FAA has set.
I am sure UA will try to grab as many of the NK flight timings as they can while B6' news that they will draw down EWR while leasing slots to UA at JFK will raise antitrust concerns.
Other airlines could well take some of those flight timings and I expect several will just...
EWR is schedule coordinated which means anybody can choose to add flights within the schedule limits the FAA has set.
I am sure UA will try to grab as many of the NK flight timings as they can while B6' news that they will draw down EWR while leasing slots to UA at JFK will raise antitrust concerns.
Other airlines could well take some of those flight timings and I expect several will just to keep "ammo" ready for a competitive response if UA succeeds at getting into JFK.
It's not just staffing; B6 announced 11 new routes from FLL to backfill former NK markets, 6 of which are new stations for B6. All go on sale on Monday: https://www.jetblue.com/flights/more-flights-from-fll
S. Florida is a much stronger market than it has ever been and FLL has a good chance of developing into a genuine hub. Wealth is being pushed further north from MIA.
FLL fares were brought down by NK because their product was so substandard. B6 could stand a chance of making FLL work w/ a better product that should be more rationally priced.
B6' problem is that they will be competing to all of...
S. Florida is a much stronger market than it has ever been and FLL has a good chance of developing into a genuine hub. Wealth is being pushed further north from MIA.
FLL fares were brought down by NK because their product was so substandard. B6 could stand a chance of making FLL work w/ a better product that should be more rationally priced.
B6' problem is that they will be competing to all of the big 4's major hubs; it doesn't take much for each one to bleed B6 just a bit and collectively they make B6' life very miserable.
FLL can work for B6 if they build out a strong hub to the Caribbean and Latin America so they don't have to compete just for local FLL traffic.
as for what gets cut in order to fund this growth, a 10% cut at JFK could be enough to lease UA the slots it wants. I believe the chances are high that the "flight time" swap at EWR will be ruled anti-competitive if UA tries to give schedule coordinate flight times to B6. It isn't clear that UA can succeed at adding any flights to JFK given that they tout their #1 size in NYC already.
If UA does succeed at starting flights at JFK, it is almost certain that DL will start EWR transcon flights.
as for SJU, that is and always will be a vulnerable market that other carriers including F9 need to serve and which doesn't command great fares in volume. Not sure SJU will work out any better for B6 than it has in the past.
pulldowns in MCO are likely to help DL and WN who will both seize opportunities.
I don’t think we will see much change, given the very high fuel environment. Also, let’s remember that we are going into the Hurricane season in Florida.
United doesn’t tend to grow outside of its hubs. They don’t operate “focus city’s”
Delta already considers FLL a “key city” and basically has its own terminal (alongside westjet/AC) in FLL. They have their eyes set on Austin and are being disciplined due to Fuel costs.
...I don’t think we will see much change, given the very high fuel environment. Also, let’s remember that we are going into the Hurricane season in Florida.
United doesn’t tend to grow outside of its hubs. They don’t operate “focus city’s”
Delta already considers FLL a “key city” and basically has its own terminal (alongside westjet/AC) in FLL. They have their eyes set on Austin and are being disciplined due to Fuel costs.
American will not expand meaningfully, they already have MIA.
Southwest already consolidated to MCO.
Frontier …who knows what the dart board has in store.
Breeze is probably the most likely candidate who can target growth.
May Spirit’s carcass sustain jetBlue’s survival…
The big issue with FLL is the yield per PAX. FLL is more leisure (retirees, connecting to cruise line ports, vacation, etc) as opposed to MIA which is business oriented and higher yield.
@ Exit Row Seat -- I wouldn't say Miami is "business oriented," and there's also good money to be made with leisure travelers nowadays.
But yeah, MIA is definitely the preferred airport for more affluent passengers. But with growth opportunities so limited there, FLL is the next best option.
Miami is not a business city.
Miami is majorly tourism oriented with few newly moved in finance bros, that’s it, no industry was formed in Miami. You can’t say business traveling happening a lot to Miami.
Practically every Latin American business that has a US HQ, has that HQ in Miami. To say it is not a business city is just not really accurate. Yes, it doesn't have a high number of true 'headquarters" for US companies, especially for its size, but it has massive amounts of offices of LATAM companies.
With Brightline, I think FLL isn't as bad of an airport choice as it used to be (if you are going to downtown/South Miami). I don't know if jetBlue has a partnership with Brightline yet, but if not, they definetly should partner and promote it. Especially with B6 basically pulling out of MIA recently.
@ JB -- Brightline and JetBlue do have a partnership. The issue, as I see it, is that the Brightline station at FLL is about six miles from the airport, so it's not exactly seamless connectivity.
Uh, isn’t Brightline going bankrupt too??
Funny how capitalism figures things out that the govt can’t!
And I’m talking about both Biden and Trump…