JetBlue spent years trying to buy Spirit Airlines, only for regulators to block the deal. Spirit then collapsed on its own, and JetBlue is now taking 11 of its routes anyway - without writing a check.
Spirit shut down early Saturday after bondholders rejected an 11th-hour Trump administration bailout, and by that afternoon JetBlue had announced its plan to "fill the void" at Fort Lauderdale, Spirit's biggest hub.
The earliest new flight starts July 9. Six destinations are entirely new for JetBlue from Fort Lauderdale: Baltimore and Charlotte begin in July, Columbus and Indianapolis in November, and Cali and Barranquilla in Colombia round out the international additions in October.
Five existing destinations get fresh nonstop service: Nashville, Detroit, Houston, Chicago, and Ponce in Puerto Rico, all starting July 9.
When the dust settles, JetBlue plans to run close to 130 daily departures from Fort Lauderdale this summer, which would be the biggest footprint the airline has ever had at the airport.
The 11 new routes also reach into markets Spirit operated alone before its collapse, like Indianapolis and Columbus, where JetBlue is filling a gap no other major carrier had been working.
Spirit had been the dominant carrier at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International, using it as the airline's largest hub. Its sudden exit pulled a major share of the airport's daily flights off the map overnight.
JetBlue's expansion fills part of that gap, and travelers in cities like Indianapolis and Columbus, which Spirit served and JetBlue had not, get a major airline option that wasn't available before.
A bankrupt airline disappeared on a Saturday morning, and by the afternoon, a competitor had carved up the route map.
JetBlue's statement nodded to Spirit's people, saying the airline got to know many of Spirit's crew during acquisition talks and was thinking about every one of them.
Other carriers are stepping in too, with United and Southwest offering deals to stranded Spirit passengers.
The opportunity for JetBlue is more permanent than a few rescued passengers - Spirit's collapse pulls a low-cost competitor out of dozens of markets, giving JetBlue room to operate without Spirit's pricing pressure underneath it.
Airfare is the line investors should track. Industry data had warned that ticket prices could climb roughly 14% if Spirit failed, because Spirit acted as a price floor in many markets, not just a low-cost option.
Many Spirit travelers had bookings that vanished when the airline shut down, leaving United, Southwest, and JetBlue to absorb the demand. The route map at Fort Lauderdale will keep shifting in the coming weeks as airlines compete for the open slots.
JetBlue gets the routes, and travelers may pay more. That's how this usually goes when one carrier exits and another expands into the gap.
