American Airlines ends its Miami to Tulum route

American Airlines will stop flying between Miami and Tulum on January 5, 2027, leaving one daily Dallas-Fort Worth departure on a 78-seat regional jet as its entire operation at the airport.

The carrier confirmed the cut in a statement to El Financiero. "We will suspend our Tulum to Miami service as of January 5, 2027," it said, adding that flights from its Dallas-Fort Worth hub continue.

Tulum's Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport opened to foreign traffic in March 2024 with American as its first international carrier. The cuts fall in the weeks when the Riviera Maya is normally at its busiest, and travelers from the United States are the largest group arriving in this part of the country.

American Airlines Tulum flights shrink to 78 seats a day

The seat loss runs deeper than the route map. American has also changed the aircraft on the Dallas service, moving it to an Embraer 175 operated by a regional subsidiary of its own group, with room for about 78 passengers. The airline opened its Tulum flying with Boeing 737-800s configured for 172.

That is 94 fewer seats per departure, by our arithmetic, on the only American route Tulum will have left.

The number of routes the airline began with depends on which account is open. El Financiero counts four daily flights in March 2024, two from Dallas plus Charlotte and Los Angeles. Líder Empresarial lists Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and Charlotte, and describes Los Angeles as a connection the carrier had only contemplated. Charlotte ended in February 2025. This publication covered the Dallas launch, when the terminal first began international service.

Volaris follows two days later, and Aeroméxico has already left

Three carriers have announced changes at Tulum inside a single season, and they are not the same kind of change.

• Aeroméxico suspended its Tulum operation on September 30, citing market conditions and the efficiency of its route network. The suspension has been presented as temporary rather than a permanent exit
• Volaris stops selling flights to and from Tulum after January 7, 2027. Itineraries scheduled until then are expected to operate as planned, with rebooking, vouchers, or refunds offered to passengers affected by later changes
• American removes Miami on January 5, 2027, and keeps Dallas-Fort Worth

Only one of the three leaves the airport outright in the near term. The distinction matters to travel agencies and hotels taking January bookings now, because a suspended route and a withdrawn airline do not return the same way.

Passenger traffic fell 33.2 percent in the first half of 2026

The route decisions track a terminal that has been emptying for more than a year. Figures from the Agencia Federal de Aviación Civil, reported by Líder Empresarial, put passenger movement at the Tulum airport down 33.2 percent across the first six months of 2026, with the international segment falling 40.8 percent.

El Financiero reports the airport now averages about ten flights a day, a fall of nearly three-quarters from the peak it reached two years ago, citing the national aviation authority. The terminal had surpassed 1 million passengers in its first year of operations, with service to the United States, Europe, Colombia, Canada, Panama, and the main Mexican markets.

Airline incentives usually granted for three years were withdrawn

El Financiero places the start of the decline inside the terminal rather than in the destination. According to that report, the airport's administration, part of the military conglomerate Grupo Mundo Maya, removed the incentives airlines are typically given for three years at a new airport, and carriers started pulling out in 2025 once those discounts were gone. The same report attributes the subsequent losses to heavy sargassum arrivals and to its own assessment of how the destination has been managed.

Fuel is pressing from the other side. President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed to jet fuel reaching an average of $ 194.90 per barrel, according to Platts figures cited by her government, an annual increase of 116.5 percent, and linked the rise to the conflict in Iran. She ruled out a direct subsidy as a simple answer.

Air Canada, WestJet, and Air Transat return on October 24

Capacity is moving in both directions this winter.

Grupo Aeroportuario Mundo Maya, which operates the terminal, said in figures reported in early October that Air Canada, WestJet, and Air Transat will resume Tulum operations from October 24 through March 2027, with more than 710 international operations projected during that period. The same operator projected international operations for Delta, United, and American to rise from 552 to 1,064 between November 2026 and March 2027.

That projection and American's filed schedule do not point the same way, and no one has reconciled them in public.

Domestic service holds. Mexicana, also run by the armed forces, and Viva Aerobus both fly to Tulum daily. Viva told El Financiero it will continue operating flights and that on some days it operates more than one departure from Felipe Ángeles International.

Sheinbaum ordered a review of the airport's costs and operations

The federal government says it expects the canceled routes to come back.

Sheinbaum said her administration would examine the specific conditions affecting the Tulum terminal alongside the factors weighing on international aviation, require Grupo Mundo Maya to account for the situation at the airport and the activities under its management, and keep talking to Aeroméxico, Volaris, and Viva about the sector's concerns, airport charges among them.

The review has no published timetable, and no airline has announced a reversal.

The next fixed dates belong to the airlines rather than to the review. American's Miami service stops on January 5; Volaris stops two days after that, and by the second week of January, the airport the federal government is promising to refill will have one American departure a day with 78 seats.

Does losing the direct Miami connection change how you plan a trip to Tulum, or will you route through Cancún instead? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.