Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Mul­ti­ple No­tices to Air­men (NO­TAMs) is­sued overnight by the US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) ban­ning Amer­i­can car­ri­ers from op­er­at­ing in parts of the Caribbean led to mul­ti­ple flight can­cel­la­tions across the re­gion on Sat­ur­day. The NO­TAMs, is­sued for parts of the Cu­ra­cao, Mai­que­tia, Pi­ar­co, and San Juan Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gions, banned op­er­a­tors from op­er­at­ing at any al­ti­tude with­out pri­or au­tho­ri­sa­tion due to the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary strikes in Venezuela, which led to the cap­ture of that coun­try’s Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro and his wife. The FAA cit­ed “safe­ty-of-flight risks as­so­ci­at­ed with on­go­ing mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty” as the rea­son for the safe­ty no­tice. For­eign car­ri­ers, and US mil­i­tary, and state air­craft were ex­empt.

Puer­to Ri­co’s Luis Muñoz Marín In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, one of the busiest air­ports in the re­gion, was one of the hard­est hit, with over 400 can­cel­la­tions ac­cord­ing to flight track­ing web­site FlightAware.com. Bar­ba­dos’ Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al reg­is­tered 27 can­cel­la­tions, while St Lu­cia’s Hewanor­ra In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port reg­is­tered 24 can­cel­la­tions. T&T’s Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port saw on­ly 14 can­cel­la­tions.

The safe­ty no­tices seem­ing­ly caught car­ri­ers un­aware, leav­ing them scram­bling to ad­just to the re­stric­tions. Jet­Blue Flight 2017, bound for Port-of-Spain, was one of the first ones to be af­fect­ed, turn­ing back to New York’s JFK Air­port just 30 min­utes in­to its jour­ney. A Jet­Blue spokesper­son told Guardian Me­dia B62017 was one of over 215 flights can­celled due to “mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty”. The air­line has of­fered pas­sen­gers the op­tion to re­book or re­quest a re­fund. Sim­i­lar­ly, Amer­i­can Air­lines and Unit­ed Air­lines were forced to make sched­ule ad­just­ments due to the ban. In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, Amer­i­can Air­lines said the ban af­fect­ed its ser­vice to 19 air­ports in the east­ern Caribbean. The air­line is waiv­ing change fees and has capped fares to and from the 19 air­ports af­fect­ed by the re­stric­tions.

Even air­lines that were not blocked by the FAA’s re­stric­tions still chose to can­cel flights out of pre­cau­tion. KLM and Air France were among sev­er­al Eu­ro­pean car­ri­ers to can­cel ser­vices to the re­gion. In a press re­lease, KLM said the de­ci­sion not to op­er­ate af­fect­ed 2,600 pas­sen­gers. The air­line will op­er­ate sched­uled ser­vices on Jan­u­ary 4 to Cu­ra­cao, Aru­ba, Bonaire, Sint Maarten, Port-of-Spain, George­town, and Bridgetown.

De­spite the clo­sures, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge con­firmed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s air­space re­mained open to com­mer­cial traf­fic, as the FAA does not have ju­ris­dic­tion over lo­cal air­space. Lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines al­so said its flights were op­er­at­ing as sched­uled and ad­vised cus­tomers to reg­is­ter for re­al-time up­dates on its web­site. Air Cana­da al­so re­leased a state­ment in­di­cat­ing that its flights to the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca were op­er­at­ing nor­mal­ly.

The NO­TAMs were due to ex­pire on Jan­u­ary 4; how­ev­er, US Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Sean Duffy, in a post to X, for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter, said the air­space re­stric­tions will be lift­ed “when ap­pro­pri­ate.”