Guyana’s airspace open despite Venezuela’s closure

Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al of the Guyana Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (GCAA), Re­tired Lt. Col. Eg­bert Field says Guyana’s air­space is open de­spite Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s po­si­tion that the air­space “above and sur­round­ing Venezuela” is closed to air­lines and flights en­gaged in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

He said nei­ther do­mes­tic nor in­ter­na­tion­al flights in and out of Guyana would be af­fect­ed.

In terms of in­ter­na­tion­al flights to Trinidad, and Colom­bia, Filed said those were now us­ing a dif­fer­ent flight path

The traf­fic is be­ing rerout­ed for the last cou­ple of days. It wouldn’t im­pact Guyana and Colom­bia,” he said.

In terms of do­mes­tic flights to and from in­te­ri­or des­ti­na­tions close to the Guyana-Venezuela bor­der, he said there were al­so no dis­rup­tions “even clos­er to the bor­der.”

“They have a dif­fer­ent FIR (flight in­for­ma­tion re­gion) so there will be no dis­rup­tion. All our airstrips are with­in our air­space and not that close so there is no dis­rup­tion,” the GCAA Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al said.

This po­si­tion was al­so sup­port­ed by lo­cal avi­a­tors who said on Sat­ur­day that do­mes­tic flights were op­er­at­ing in those in­te­ri­or ar­eas nor­mal­ly.

The as­sur­ance by the GCAA came against the back­drop of a post by the US Pres­i­dent on his Truth So­cial plat­form stat­ing – “To all Air­lines, Pi­lots, Drug Deal­ers, and Hu­man Traf­fick­ers, please con­sid­er THE AIR­SPACE ABOVE AND SUR­ROUND­ING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS EN­TIRE­TY”.

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­istry of De­fence on Sat­ur­day said lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines con­tin­ue to op­er­ate flights in­to and out of that twin-is­land with­out in­ter­rup­tion.

Com­mer­cial air­lines op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go have not re­port­ed any dis­rup­tions, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge em­pha­sised that the trav­el­ling pub­lic can con­tin­ue to plan flights nor­mal­ly.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Nov. 30, CMC