By Kylie Madry
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican airline Volaris believes a resolution to a dispute between the U.S. and Mexico on aviation could arrive in the coming days, the carrier’s CEO said on Tuesday.
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation rolled out orders requiring Mexican airlines submit their flight schedules and threatening to reject requests if the Mexican government did not address U.S. concerns over flight changes in Mexico City.
Under the previous government, Mexico moved cargo flights from the main capital airport to a newer, farther-away site while also cutting passenger flight slots.
“We feel tremendously confident that the solution is going to be here in the next few days,” Volaris CEO Enrique Beltranena told analysts in the firm’s second-quarter results call.
The executive added that he remained “confident that both governments will reach a logical and mutually beneficial agreement.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum, in her daily morning press conference on Tuesday said that the Mexico and U.S. would kick off talks on the issue and that some compromises could be made.
“(The U.S.) is making a set of particular requests, we’re analyzing them to see whether they can be addressed or whether an alternative can be proposed.”
However, she cautioned that the new airport where flights were moved – the Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA) – was also a solution itself.
Sheinbaum’s mentor, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, overhauled the capital airspace during his term, arguing that the main airport was oversaturated and that the AIFA, which he had built, would alleviate the pressure.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Aida Peleaz-Fernandez; Editing by Natalia Siniawski)
