El Paso officials say the closure came on short notice; Mexican airspace remains open
Thomson Reuters
The U.S. has halted all flights to and from El Paso International Airport in Texas for "special security reasons," the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday, without giving more details.
The airport, which is next to the U.S. military's Biggs Army Airfield and sits over the border from the Mexican city of Juarez, said all flights had been grounded in a post on Instagram.
The El Paso airport said the restrictions had been issued "on short notice" and it was waiting for additional guidance from the FAA, according to The New York Times.
Flights were also barred from the airspace over the nearby community of Santa Teresa in the U.S. state of New Mexico, the FAA said.
Restrictions would be in place until Feb. 21 and covered a radius of about 10 nautical miles from the airport, not including Mexican airspace, the agency added.
The FAA did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for details about the security reasons.
The airport handled 3.49 million passengers in the first 11 months of 2025, according to its website. Major U.S. airlines including Southwest, Delta, United and American fly there.
El Paso, with a population of about 680,000 people, is the 23rd largest city in the U.S.
Closing the airspace over an American city is extremely rare, but notably took place nationwide in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
