The US Lifts Its Freeze on New Mexican Airline Routes From Mexico City’s Two Airports

On October 16, 2026, the US Department of Transportation revoked the order that had barred Mexican airlines from launching new US routes or adding flights from Mexico City’s two international airports, Benito Juarez (MEX) and Felipe Angeles (NLU). The change took effect immediately.

It ends a freeze of almost a year that had cost Aeromexico, Volaris and Viva Aerobus 13 current or planned US routes. Mexico’s foreign and transport ministries announced the decision in a joint statement, saying more flights to the US will open from both airports.

What the 2025 order blocked

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the freeze on October 28, 2025, as a response to what his department called Mexico’s “continued abuse” of the 2015 US-Mexico air transport agreement. “Until Mexico stops the games and honors its commitments, we will continue to hold them accountable,” Duffy said at the time.

The order, DOT Order 2025-10-13, disapproved two existing Aeromexico services and 11 planned ones. It also blocked every new route and every extra frequency between either Mexico City airport and the US until further notice.

Airline	Route	Status when blocked
Aeromexico	Felipe Angeles (NLU) to Houston (IAH)	Operating; disapproval set for Nov 7, 2025
Aeromexico	Felipe Angeles (NLU) to McAllen (MFE)	Operating; disapproval set for Nov 7, 2025
Aeromexico	Mexico City (MEX) to San Juan (SJU)	Planned to start Oct 29, 2025
Volaris	Mexico City (MEX) to Newark (EWR)	Planned to start Nov 2, 2025
Viva Aerobus	Felipe Angeles (NLU) to Austin, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York JFK and Orlando	Nine routes planned for Nov to Dec 2025

Why Washington changed course

The new order, Order 2026-10-8, is signed by Daniel J. Edwards, DOT’s Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs. It says the steps Mexico has taken “sufficiently address” the concerns behind the freeze.

Those steps trace back to a Memorandum of Consultations that DOT and Mexico’s transport ministry, SICT, concluded on May 1, 2026. In it, SICT committed to return every MEX slot taken from US passenger airlines and confirmed that US carriers can be awarded slots for all-cargo flights at MEX.

By DOT’s account, Mexico has since returned many of those slots and will hand back the rest when US airlines are ready to restart the flights they were forced to drop. Mexico also held a capacity consultation with MEX airport users and rewrote its slot rules.

Among the rule changes DOT lists, Mexico replaced its 85/15 slot usage requirement with the 80/20 global standard, dropped a 15-minute punctuality clause and set up an independent slot coordinator within AFAC, its civil aviation agency.

The 80/20 standard is aviation’s “use it or lose it” rule: an airline must fly at least 80% of its slots or risk losing them to another carrier.

What stays in place

The same order keeps Order 2025-7-11 from July 2025 in force, so Mexican airlines must still file their US schedules with DOT, which uses those filings to check each service against the public interest.

Order 2025-7-10 also stays, so the affected carriers still need specific DOT approval before flying any charter with large aircraft to or from the US. DOT says it will keep monitoring how Mexico applies its new slot rules.

A US official told Reuters that two other orders tied to the dispute remain and that Washington will closely monitor Mexico’s compliance. The official said the decision is separate from an ongoing FAA review of Mexico’s aviation oversight, conducted in August.

The October 16 order does not mention DOT’s separate October 2025 proposal, Order 2025-10-14, to bar Mexican passenger airlines from carrying belly cargo between MEX and the US. That proposal’s public docket holds no final order.

How the dispute started

According to DOT’s 2025 order, the fight began on August 26, 2022, when the MEX slot coordinator took historic slots from American, Delta and United, as well as from Aeromexico, Viva Aerobus and Volaris. Mexican authorities said operations had to fall from 61 to 52 an hour.

Mexico said the cut was temporary, to allow construction. A second resolution on August 31, 2023, lowered the cap to 43 an hour from the Winter 2023/2024 season, though DOT says nothing physical had changed at the airport’s terminals or runways.

A presidential decree on February 2, 2023, banned all-cargo flights at MEX, and the three US all-cargo carriers there moved to Felipe Angeles International on September 1, 2023, while passenger airlines kept carrying belly cargo at MEX.

Washington argued that both moves broke the agreement’s promise of a “fair and equal opportunity” to compete. DOT also objected that Mexican airlines repurposed their own MEX slots to add US routes while US carriers’ service stayed frozen.

The same dispute shaped DOT’s September 2025 order to end the antitrust-immune joint venture between Delta and Aeromexico, which was based on concerns about Mexico’s policies at MEX. A federal appeals court vacated that order in August 2026, and the partnership continues.

Which routes could come back

Revoking Order 2025-10-13 lifts the disapprovals on all 13 routes, so the airlines are free to file them again, along with any other new service from MEX or NLU. Each new schedule still goes to DOT under the filing order.

Neither DOT’s order nor Mexico’s statement names a route that will restart, or a date. Viva and Aeromexico said the decision would strengthen air connectivity between the two countries, Reuters reported.

For US travelers, the largest blocked plan was Viva’s, with nine nonstops from Felipe Angeles to US cities. For American, Delta and United, the deal behind the decision matters too: DOT says the MEX slots they lost are being returned.