You were hurt on an Aeromexico flight between California and Mexico, and you may not be certain you were even flying Aeromexico, because a very large share of the airline's California traffic is sold under a US carrier's name. That confusion is the most important thing to clear up, and it can work strongly in your favor.

Does the Montreal Convention Cover an Aeromexico Flight?

Yes. The treaty governs international carriage between parties to it, and the United States and Mexico have both been parties since it entered into force in 2003. A ticket from Los Angeles to Mexico City, or San Francisco to Guadalajara, is international carriage.

What the treaty does is also widely misread. Below a threshold it sets, the airline is not allowed to argue it was not at fault for an injury caused by an accident on board. Above that threshold it can defend itself, and if it fails to prove it took all reasonable measures, nothing caps what it owes. The number is a floor under the claim rather than a ceiling over it.

The Delta Question Decides a Lot

This is the part specific to Aeromexico, and it is worth more than any other fact on this page.

Aeromexico is a SkyTeam founding member, Delta holds a minority equity stake in it, and the two have run a deep commercial partnership across the US and Mexico market. That partnership has been contested: the US Department of Transportation ordered the joint venture unwound, and in August 2026 a federal appeals court vacated that order, leaving the arrangement and its immunity in place. For an injured passenger the litigation is beside the point. What matters is that an enormous volume of California to Mexico flying is sold by Delta and operated by Aeromexico, or the reverse.

Here is why that helps you. The treaty distinguishes the contracting carrier, which sold you the ticket, from the actual carrier, which operated the flight, and lets an injured passenger proceed against either. If Delta sold you the ticket, Delta is a contracting carrier under the treaty, and Delta is a US company that can be sued here without any argument about foreign forums at all. The hardest question in most foreign airline claims, where the case can be heard, can simply evaporate depending on whose name is on the booking.

Which means the single most valuable document you have is the booking confirmation with the operated-by line, not the boarding pass. A boarding pass shows a flight number, and on these routes the number very often belongs to the seller rather than the operator.

Can You Sue Aeromexico in California?

Often you can, and the question is worth asking separately from the Delta one. The treaty gives an injured passenger a forum where they have their principal and permanent residence, provided the carrier operates service to or from that place and does business there from premises it or a commercial partner occupies. Several factors decide whether those conditions were met on your trip, starting with what the airline was actually flying to or from California around that date and the kind of presence it kept here. We can review your itinerary and tell you where your case can be brought.

That first condition is worth pausing on, because Aeromexico's California map is wider than most people assume. This is not a two airport airline here. Alongside the big coastal gateways it has served a number of smaller California airports, which is a different pattern from the long haul carriers that concentrate everything at Los Angeles and San Francisco. Those routes come and go and the schedule shifts, so what matters is what the airline was flying around the time of your trip rather than what a route map says today.

The practical effect is that you did not have to fly out of LAX for any of this to be worth looking at. A passenger who lives in the Central Valley, around Sacramento, or in the Inland Empire and boarded at their own local airport is in substantially the same position as someone who left from Los Angeles. If your flight was a codeshare operated by Aeromexico out of one of the smaller airports, that is still an Aeromexico claim, and the residence question follows where you live rather than which airport you used.

Several of the treaty's other forums may also land here, because much of this flying is simple round trips rather than connections to a third country. If California was your destination on the return, or the place you bought the ticket, those are separate possible routes to the same courthouse and they are worth checking alongside the residence one. We walk through all of them in suing a foreign airline in California.

Who Owns the Airline Can Change the Procedure

One procedural question is worth asking at the start of any claim against a foreign airline. Under US law, a carrier that a foreign government owns or controls can be treated as an arm of that state, and that changes the machinery of a case rather than its merits: the claim may be tried to a judge instead of a jury, and the airline has to be served through a particular route rather than ordinary means.

Where a given carrier sits on that question depends on its current ownership, which moves, and on whether a government holding sits in the airline itself or somewhere above it in a corporate structure. It is a question to answer against a current source in the first week of a case rather than from a page like this one, because it governs service of process and answering it late is expensive. If Delta is the contracting carrier on your ticket, it tends not to arise at all.

What injures passengers

Common Injuries on a Mexico Flight, and Which Ones the Treaty Reaches

Most California to Mexico flying is three to five hours, which keeps claims concentrated in what the treaty handles most cleanly.

Overhead Bin and Falling Baggage

A bin that opens in flight, or a bag coming down during deplaning. External, and the clearest case the treaty handles.

Hot Liquid and the Service Cart

Scalding drinks and cart strikes in a cabin served briskly on a short sector. The compressed service cycle is its own risk.

Turbulence

An unbelted passenger thrown from a seat, particularly on afternoon departures into summer convective weather over the interior.

Jetway and Airstairs Falls

Inside the treaty, because embarking and disembarking are part of the carriage. The jetway and the airstairs both count.

A Fall Inside the Terminal

Outside the treaty. A fall inside a Mexican terminal is a premises claim in Mexico, often on a much shorter deadline. Do not let it sit.

What the Short Sector Removes

Clots and the other duration problems barely arise, which takes away the most common reason one of these claims is denied.

Where We Are Not the Right Call

If you live outside California, the residence forum follows your home rather than your airport. If you were hurt inside a Mexican terminal rather than on the aircraft, the stairs, or the jetway, that is a premises claim in Mexico. If more than two years have passed since the flight landed, the claim is very probably gone, because the deadline is a condition on the right to sue and nothing in the airline's claims process pauses it. And if your loss is baggage, run it through the airline's process inside its notice window, counted in days.

What to Do This Week

One. Find the booking confirmation and answer one question before anything else: which airline sold you this ticket, and which one operated the flight? That answer may decide where your case is heard and who you are suing.

Two. Write down the sequence, including which crew member you told and whether anything was logged.

Three. See a physician now, not later.

Four. Count two years from the landing date and treat it as fixed.

If Delta's name is on your booking, your claim may be considerably more straightforward than you were expecting. If Aeromexico's is, the residence forum ordinarily still brings it here. We evaluate these claims at no cost, and we will tell you honestly when what happened does not meet the treaty's accident standard.