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.
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?