Image source, Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images
“I was traveling on November 24, and when I was almost at the door of 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 are stranded these days at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (Spain) as a result of the announcements made by the United States government regarding Venezuela last week.
On November 21, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) urged airlines to “exercise extreme caution” when flying over Venezuela and the southern Caribbean, given what it considered a “potentially dangerous situation in the region.”
The warning caused 8 international airlines to suspend their flights to the Caribbean country, to which the Venezuelan authorities responded by canceling the air traffic rights of six of those companies.
But the situation did not stop there: President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the airspace “above” and “around” Venezuela should be considered “completely” closed.
The Venezuelan authorities described the declaration as a “colonial threat” and stressed that they were activating “all multilateral mechanisms” to achieve “the immediate cessation of this illegitimate and illegitimate act.”
However, since Trump’s announcement, Venezuelan airspace has recorded much less traffic than usual.
Image source, Ronald Peña R/EPA/Shutterstock
Almost clear skies
Trump’s announcement exacerbated the disruption of flights between Venezuela and the rest of the world.
A look at the air monitoring portal Flightradar24.com, between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, showed only a few planes flying over Venezuela, most of them belonging to national carriers or private airlines covering domestic routes.
During the weekend, only two international airlines operate in the country – Panamanian Copa and Colombian Wingo – according to information available on the website of Simón Bolívar de Maiquetía International Airport, which serves Caracas.
COPA has announced that it will continue to operate two daily flights between Panama and Caracas, though only during daylight hours.
For its part, Wingo reported that it would continue to connect Bogotá and Caracas, while Bolivian Airlines (BoA) continued to offer tickets to the Venezuelan capital.
Of the nearly one hundred operations planned in Maiquetia for Sunday (take-offs and landings), 20 were international flights to four destinations (Bogotá, Lima, Curacao and Panama), but only six were compatible with foreign airlines, according to pro-government media Laiguana.tv.
Before the crisis, the number of flights to and from Venezuela was 105 weekly, but it decreased in recent days to 79, a decrease of 24.7%.
The situation is not new for Venezuelans, who in the past decade have witnessed how their relations with the rest of the world have diminished, whether due to the economic and political crisis the country is going through or the Covid pandemic.
In terms of cargo, two planes belonging to the Colombian company Aerosucre were seen.
Image source, Ronald Peña R/EPA/Shutterstock
Alone
Although Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced on Saturday evening the implementation of a “special plan” for the return of stranded Venezuelans, no concrete measures have been reported so far.
Passenger Juan Carlos Rodriguez told BBC Mundo on Sunday from Madrid, criticizing the airlines’ behaviour: “We don’t have any information from the embassy. They don’t even answer the phones. We hope we get news tomorrow.”
“(The Venezuelan airline) 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 they would later see how they returned alone to their homes in Venezuela,” he recounted.
“I think this was a harsh decision, because if you don’t have the financial means to stay in Madrid, how are they going to send you to a city hundreds of kilometers away from the border with Venezuela?” He added.
Rodriguez commented that some of those stranded were taken to a shelter and received help from the Spanish Red Cross, because they lacked money and family in Spain.
“We ask to be sent to Bogotá (Colombia) or Panama, because flights to Venezuela keep leaving from there,” said the renewable energy specialist, who was surprised by the crisis in Madrid.
Rodriguez’s testimony appears to have been repeated in other cases.
“They told me they would return my money, and that I should wait until the situation was resolved or go to Bogotá and take the first flight,” Luis Morales Bex, a Spaniard visiting Caracas who claimed to have spent an additional $2,000 to get to Colombia, explained to EFE.
If the situation continues, Colombian and Venezuelan media expect an increase in land crossings between the two countries in the coming days.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the suspension of flights to and from Venezuela affects about 15,000 passengers per week, according to what the organization’s vice president, Peter Cerda, told CNN.
Image source, AFP via Getty Images
Fewer tourists and deportees
The US measures affect not only Venezuelans who want to leave or return to the country, but also international tourism and even deportations of Venezuelan migrants ordered by Trump.
The Russian company Pegas Touristik announced on Sunday that it would redirect tourists who were planning to 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.
For its part, the Venezuelan government denounced that Washington had “unilaterally suspended” the repatriation of Venezuelans.
The US announcements regarding Venezuelan airspace increased tensions between the two countries, which escalated due to the military deployment ordered by the White House in the Caribbean with the stated aim of stopping drug trafficking.
However, Caracas and many observers consider that the operation is actually aimed at forcing Nicolas Maduro from power.
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