Escalating its pressure campaign against the government of Mexico, the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) has blocked 13 Mexico City-U.S. routes operated by Mexican airlines.
Any future U.S.-Mexico City routes proposed by Mexican carriers will be blocked, reads an Oct. 28 DOT order. At issue is Mexico's handling of airport usage in Mexico City, which the DOT says violates the U.S.-Mexico Open Skies air transport agreement.
By Nov. 7, Aeromexico must cease service from Felipe Angeles (Mexico City's secondary airport) to Houston Bush Intercontinental and to McAllen, Texas.
The 11 other blocked routes are ones that had yet to begin. Two would have flown from Benito Juarez, Mexico's primary airport: Aeromexico to San Juan and Volaris to Newark. The routes were supposed to begin on Oct. 29 and Nov. 2, respectively.
The other blocked routes would have been operated by Viva Aerobus from Felipe Angeles to Austin, New York JFK, Chicago O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Bush Intercontinental, Los Angeles, Miami and Orlando. The launches were scheduled for November and December.
Felipe Angeles is central to the dispute between the Trump administration and Mexico. In 2022 and 2023, Mexico's then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sought to boost flight activity at Felipe Angeles Airport. Over the course of those two years, the Mexican government placed capacity restrictions on Benito Juarez Airport, reducing hourly flight operations from 61 to 43.
The DOT says the Benito Juarez restrictions violated the countries' Open Skies agreement, and the DOT used that as justification for ordering a dissolution of the Delta-Aeromexico joint venture, unless the two airlines prevail in a court motion to stay the ruling.
Despite the Delta-Aeromexico ruling and the blocked-routes order, the DOT said that discussions with the government of Mexico over the past few months have yielded progress, including a near-term commitment for the return of landing rights to U.S. airlines at Benito Juarez that were lost due to the rollback in flight operations.
But the department also said broader competition concerns persist, most notably that Mexican airlines have added new U.S. service from Benito Juarez by juggling how they use their service allotments at the airport, "while U.S. air carrier service levels remain frozen."
Travel Weekly has sought comment from Mexico's transportation department.