Late last year, Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico agreed to divest up to 24 slot pairs at Mexico City’s highly congested airport as a condition of forming a joint venture in the U.S.-Mexico market. (They will also give up as many as four slot pairs at New York’s JFK Airport.)
The U.S. Department of Transportation will allocate 14 of these Mexico City slot pairs to low-fare airlines this year. Those carriers will also be able to apply for up to 10 additional slot pairs in 2018, if they can show that they have made reasonable efforts to apply for slots from the airport authority and have failed.
Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico will have to give up some slots in Mexico City.
Last week, Alaska Air (NYSE: ALK), JetBlue Airways(NASDAQ: JBLU), Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), VivaAerobus, and Volaris (NYSE: VLRS) applied to the DOT for Mexico City slots. While there aren’t quite enough slots to go around, each of those five airlines will be able to get at least some of what they want.