A new AeroMexico direct flight from Mexico City was scheduled to arrive at 11:55 p.m. at Salt Lake City International Airport - bringing an increase in commerce to Utah and Mexico.

"We were, of course, thrilled," said Lane Beattie, president of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. "We want some of that business."

But a decision by U.S. Custom officials to refuse to service that flight brought Beattie's hopes crashing down.

A letter dated July 9 states that Customs officials in Utah are overworked, understaffed - and unable to fill the requirements of staffing an additional late-night flight.

"If we were to grant your request, we would be asking our officers to work until [1] or [2] in the morning during the middle of the week and still have to be back for the normal cargo operations at [8 a.m.]," wrote Nat Aycox, director of field operations for the San Francisco Customs office.

The letter followed an earlier decision by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency to cut services for some private, after-hours flights at Salt Lake International.

For Beattie, that first cut to services was significant, but the current denial to land a new flight from Mexico is "unbelievable."

Not only does Utah's economy stand to be impacted, but the state may lose efforts to win additional direct international flights, he said.

"You can imagine what this news would mean to them," he said, adding that the state is pushing airline carriers in London and other undisclosed locations for direct flights to Salt Lake City.

"It may be legitimate [to cancel the flight], but for heaven's sakes, that [flight] is very important to our overall economy," Beattie said.

"It's a poor way of doing business and they desperately need to rethink this."

Customs Port Director John Leyden of San Francisco defended the decision.

"It was a health and safety decision," he said in a telephone interview. "We've stretched our officers as far as we can stretch them."

But Barbara Gann, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City Department of Airports, said federal officials could easily bring additional staff to accommodate Utah's six Customs officials.

"It's not just money to the airport, it's money to the community," she said. "It's just commerce that it's thwarting."

AeroMexico currently runs two inbound and two outbound flights of 109 seats each at the Salt Lake airport on Thursday and Saturday. It has additional flights on Saturday and Sunday.

If the airline reinstated the canceled Tuesday night flight, the cost for additional Customs officials to process it would cost upwards of $600,000, according to Leyden.

"It's a misutilization of staffing to bring them in for one flight," he said.

But Salt Lake officials say the loss of commerce to the state - estimated at $60,000 per month in fuel sales alone - is more substantial.

On Monday, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson met with Beattie, Lt. Gov. Gail McKechnie, airport officials and others to discuss impacts of the customs agency decision and to formulate a plan to stop potential cancellations in the future.

Anderson's spokeswoman, Deeda Seed, said the mayor petitioned Utah's U.S. senators for support in overturning the customs agency's cancellation.

"Yesterday I learned that U.S. Customs is taking an absurd, unilateral policy one devastating step further and applying it to commercial airlines as well," Anderson wrote in the July 22 letter. "This will have long-term detrimental effects on our city, the entire state, local businesses, and consumers."

Keith Christensen of the Utah Air Travel Commission said officials in attendance at Anderson's "emergency" meeting Monday would be co-signing another petition to the state's congressional delegation.

"It's frustrating when locally we work so hard to generate commerce and someone upline at Customs can say 'We're not interested, we're busy,' Christensen said.

"It's clearly a case of the tail wagging the dog. If you look at it from a federal perspective the value is real - and to the state of Utah, it's certainly clear."

nwarburton@sltrib.com