Delta Air Lines has filed a petition in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in a bid to seek a review by the Department of Transportation to strip it of antitrust immunity with Aeromexico as part of a joint venture on transborder flights to Mexico.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy signed the final order last month, telling Delta and Aeromexico to unwind their joint venture by January 1, 2026, over concerns that the Mexican government was blocking US airlines from accessing Mexico City Airport.
The Trump administration has accused Mexico of limiting slots for foreign airlines at Benito Juárez International Airport, which is Mexico City’s primary international gateway and the airport that most passengers want to fly into and out of.
Aeromexico has retained the lion’s share of slots at Benito Juárez Airport while other airlines are being forced to use a lesser-used airfield on the outskirts of the city.
The Mexican government claims these airlines have to use the new airport further from the city center because Benito Juárez requires major upgrade works that will further limit capacity at the already congested airport.
The issue, though, as far as White House officials see it, is that these long-awaited improvement works are yet to materialize, and airlines are facing restrictions even though construction hasn’t yet started.
In the final order, Duffy claimed that the restrictions imposed on US and other foreign airlines by the Mexican government unfavorably benefited Aeromexico, which retains the bulk of the slots at Benito Juárez Airport.
In a bid to stop the Trump administration from forcing Delta and Aeromexico to unwind their joint venture, the Mexican government had promised to return ‘confiscated’ landing and takeoff slots to US airlines and establish a new regulator to manage slot allocation in the future.
While the DOT welcomed these concessions, the final order said that these still weren’t enough to stop it from terminating the antitrust deal between Delta and Aeromexico, and key questions remained “unanswered.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Delta said the airline had filed for a court review of the final order to protect its business interests and its customers.
The statement explained: “The decision for Delta and Aeromexico to petition for review of the DOT’s final order is not taken lightly but is our only option at this point in time and procedurally the next step in the process to protect Deltas’s and Aeromexico’s business interests, global networks and customers.”
“Additionally, Delta and Aeromexico are inextricably one business in the transborder market, operating for the benefit of US customers. Unwinding the joint venture by the Jan 1 deadline the DOT set would be operationally and financially burdensome.”
Delta owns a non-controlling 20% stake in Aeromexico, which is a privately owned company since it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2022. Since 2007, the Mexican government has not held a stake in Aeromexico.
