As tensions with the United States escalate, Venezuela’s skies have grown increasingly complex.
Washington issued a commercial flight alert last week due to an “increase in military activity” in the region, prompting six airlines to suspend operations.
At the same time, the White House requested special authorisations for repatriation flights, including the operation with which it deported 175 migrants this Wednesday — a contradiction that Caracas describes as a “double standard” by the Trump administration.
After six airlines suspended flights in response to a US Federal Aviation Administration alert — which urged carriers to “exercise extreme caution” in the area — Venezuela’s Ministry of Transport gave them a 48-hour deadline to resume operations, asserting that its airspace was safe.
The airlines, however, did not lift the suspension, and when the deadline expired at noon on Wednesday, they lost their permits to operate in the country.
This measure involves revoking permits for the Spanish company Iberia, the Portuguese TAP, the Colombian Avianca, the Colombian branch of the Chilean-Brazilian Latam, the Brazilian GOL, and Turkish Airlines, according to Venezuela’s civil aviation authority.
Meanwhile, Copa, Wingo, Boliviana de Aviacion, and Satena continue to operate, as do the local airlines Avior and the state-owned Conviasa. Venezuelan carriers Laser and Estelar, however, announced the suspension of their flights to Madrid until December 1, following warnings issued by Spain’s Aeronautical Authority. Flight disruptions have affected more than 8,000 passengers on at least 40 flights, according to the National Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies.
In this context, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello stated on Thursday that the Venezuelan Government is the one that “decides who flies and who doesn’t” and that it “reserves the right of admission,” criticising the alert issued by Washington and reinforcing the stance against foreign intervention.
“Keep your planes, and we will keep our dignity,” Cabello added.
US plane with 175 migrants lands in Venezuela
The Ministry of Transport confirmed that while issuing the alerts, the United States had requested “special permits” to operate repatriation flights with US aircraft — a request made even as Washington was “urging foreign airlines to suspend flights to Venezuela,” the ministry noted.
Thus, in this context, a plane with 175 migrants deported from the United States landed in Venezuela on Wednesday.
According to a source from Venezuela’s Ministry of Transport who spoke to the EFE news agency, the aircraft from US airline Eastern Airlines, coming from the state of Arizona, arrived at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia — Caracas’s main air terminal — with 142 men and 26 women on board, along with two teenagers and five children.
The same source highlighted to the agency the contradiction between the US warning and the operation carried out: “A US plane landed in Maiquetia with a US crew, and there is no danger in Venezuelan airspace. They arrived and left safely. It is the double discourse of the Government of Donald Trump,” the source said.
The repatriation flight landed just 15 minutes before the 48-hour deadline granted by the Venezuelan Government to international airlines to resume operations expired.
Additionally, the Ministry of Transport wrote in a message published on Instagram: “The arrival of this aircraft demonstrates the safety of our airspace, despite the narrative the Government of President Donald Trump seeks to promote, imposing restrictions on foreign airlines that maintain commercial flights to Venezuela.”
According to Caracas, “in the coming days,” new flights under the same repatriation scheme are expected to arrive, amid a cascading cancellation of international routes to the South American country.
The situation occurs amid the constant presence of US fighter jets just a few dozen kilometres from Venezuela’s coast, according to aircraft tracking sites, increasing regional tension.
All this is happening within the framework of the US military deployment that Washington maintains in the area to carry out what it describes as counter-narcotics operations, which have left at least 81 dead.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro says this actually aims to bring about a change of government.
