“I was traveling on November 24, and when I was about to door the plane, they told me that the flight was cancelled. Now I don’t know when I will return.”
Juan Carlos Rodríguez is one of hundreds of Venezuelans who have been stranded in recent days at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (Spain) due to the announcements made in recent weeks by the United States government regarding Venezuela.
On November 21, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asked airlines to “exercise extreme caution” when flying over Venezuela and the southern Caribbean, given what it considered a “potentially dangerous situation in the region.”
This warning prompted eight international companies to suspend their flights to the Caribbean country, a response that was followed by the Venezuelan authorities by canceling the air traffic rights of six of these companies.
But the situation did not stop there: on Saturday (11/29), President Donald Trump announced that the airspace “above” and “around” Venezuela should be considered “completely” closed.
The Venezuelan authorities classified this announcement as a “colonial threat” and stated that they had activated “all multilateral mechanisms” to reach “an immediate cessation of this illegitimate and illegitimate act.”
But since then, Venezuelan air traffic has been much lower than usual.
Almost empty sky
Trump’s announcement exacerbated Venezuela’s air isolation.
A consultation with monitoring portal Flightradar24.com, between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, showed that only a few planes were flying over the country – mostly from national companies or private jets on domestic routes.
Over the weekend, only two international carriers – Panamanian Copa and Colombian Wingo – operated in the country, according to data available on the website of Simón Bolívar de Maiquetía International Airport, which serves Caracas.
Cuba announced that it will maintain two flights daily between Panama and Caracas, but only during the day.
Wingo said it would continue to operate the Bogotá-Caracas route, and Bolivian Airlines (BoA) continued to sell tickets to the Venezuelan capital.
Of the nearly 100 operations planned for Sunday in Maiquetia (landings and take-offs), 20 were international flights to four destinations (Bogotá, Lima, Curaçao and Panama), but only six of them were from foreign companies, according to the pro-government website Laiguana.tv.
Before the crisis, there were 105 weekly flights to/from Venezuela. In recent days, the number has dropped to 79 – a decrease of 24.7%.
This situation is not new for Venezuelans, who have seen their international relations decline in the past decade due to the economic and political crisis as well as the coronavirus pandemic.
Regarding air freight, two Colombian Aerosucre aircraft were spotted.
Alone
Although Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced on Saturday evening the development of a “special plan” to return Venezuelans stranded abroad, no concrete measures have been announced yet.
“We don’t have any information from the embassy. They don’t even answer the phone. Hopefully we’ll get news tomorrow,” Juan Carlos Rodriguez on Sunday told BBC Mundo from Madrid, criticizing the airlines’ behavior.
He stated, “(Venezuelan) Estelar did not take responsibility and did not provide any kind of assistance. What they did was send a group to Medellin (Colombia), so that each one would then turn around and return to their final destination in Venezuela.”
“I consider it a harsh decision,” he asked. “If you don’t have the money to stay in Madrid, how can they send you to a city hundreds of kilometers away from the Venezuelan border?”
Rodriguez said some of the stranded passengers were taken to a shelter and received help from the Spanish Red Cross, as they had no resources or family in the country.
“We ask them to send us to Bogotá or Panama, because flights still depart from there to Venezuela,” said the expert specializing in renewable energy, surprised by the crisis while in Madrid.
Other reports follow the same line.
Luis Morales Baix, a Spaniard visiting Caracas, said he spent about $2,000 extra to get to Colombia, an amount paid out of his own pocket. “They said they would give me my money back, and that I should wait until the situation was resolved otherwise I would go to Bogotá and make the first flight,” he said.
If this scenario continues, Colombian and Venezuelan vehicles expect an increase in the flow of land crossings between the two countries in the coming days.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that about 15,000 passengers per week are affected by the suspension of flights to and from Venezuela, the organization’s vice president, Peter Cerda, told CNN.
Fewer tourists and fewer deportees
The measures adopted by the United States affect not only Venezuelans who want to leave or return to the country, but also international tourism – and even the deportations of migrants ordered by Trump.
The Russian company Pegas Touristik announced on Sunday that it will redirect tourists who will travel to Venezuela to Varadero (Cuba), according to the EFE agency.
In recent years, Margarita Island, located in the eastern Venezuelan Caribbean, has become a popular destination for Russian tourists.
The Venezuelan government also denounced that Washington “unilaterally suspended” the repatriation of deported Venezuelans.
US announcements on Venezuelan airspace have heightened tensions between the two countries, which had already flared following the deployment of troops to the Caribbean, ordered by the White House with the stated aim of combating drug trafficking.
But Caracas and many analysts estimate that the operation actually seeks to pressure Nicolas Maduro into leaving power.