Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter mul­ti­ple air­lines can­celled sched­uled com­mer­cial ser­vices to Venezuela, the coun­try’s In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Aeronáu­ti­ca Civ­il Venezuela (IN­AC) is is­su­ing an ul­ti­ma­tum to air­lines: re­sume ser­vice with­in 48 hours or risk hav­ing their traf­fic rights sus­pend­ed.

On Fri­day, the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) is­sued a No­tice to Air­men (NO­TAM) ad­vis­ing pi­lots to ex­er­cise cau­tion while op­er­at­ing in the Mai­quetía Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion (SVZM FIR). The NO­TAM specif­i­cal­ly warns pi­lots to ex­er­cise cau­tion at all al­ti­tudes, in­clud­ing dur­ing over­flight and the ar­rival and de­par­ture phas­es of flight. The ad­vi­so­ry says this is due to the “wors­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion and height­ened mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in or around Venezuela”.

Since that NO­TAM was is­sued, ma­jor air­lines such as Iberia, Turk­ish Air­lines, and Avian­ca have stopped ser­vice to the coun­try, cit­ing the FAA ad­vi­so­ry. Venezue­lan car­ri­ers con­tin­ue to op­er­ate. Lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines tem­porar­i­ly paused ser­vice to Venezuela on Sep­tem­ber 4th, call­ing it a “proac­tive com­mer­cial de­ci­sion to re­duce any risk to the safe­ty and well-be­ing of its pas­sen­gers and crew”. In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, Caribbean Air­lines said it is “ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Cara­cas and is con­duct­ing on­go­ing risk as­sess­ments in ac­cor­dance with its es­tab­lished op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures. The air­line con­tin­ues to work close­ly with lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ties to eval­u­ate con­di­tions and will re­sume op­er­a­tions as soon as it is prac­ti­cal to do so.”

Mean­while, the In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA) is call­ing on au­thor­i­ties and stake­hold­ers to “bet­ter co­op­er­ate and pro­vide clar­i­ty to air­lines”. In a me­dia re­lease, IA­TA, a trade or­gan­i­sa­tion that rep­re­sents 350+ air­lines, said its mem­ber air­lines are com­mit­ted to re­sum­ing ser­vice to/from Venezuela once con­di­tions al­low. How­ev­er, it warned that Venezuela’s de­ci­sion to man­date air­lines re­sume ser­vice with­in 48 hours or lose traf­fic rights will fur­ther re­duce much-need­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the coun­try.