As safety concerns mount, more airlines suspend Venezuela flights

Brent Pin­heiro

Brent.pin­[email protected]

Venezuela’s in­ter­na­tion­al air links are rapid­ly dwin­dling as three more car­ri­ers have sus­pend­ed flights to the coun­try. On Thurs­day, Pana­ma-based Co­pa Air­lines sus­pend­ed flights for two days due to “in­ter­mit­tent nav­i­ga­tion sig­nal is­sues” re­port­ed by its pi­lots. That sus­pen­sion has now been ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 12. In a state­ment, the air­line said the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers and crew re­mains its top pri­or­i­ty, and it will con­tin­ue to “eval­u­ate the con­di­tions that guar­an­tee op­er­a­tional safe­ty”. Colom­bian low-cost car­ri­er Wingo has sim­i­lar­ly sus­pend­ed flights un­til De­cem­ber 12. Wingo is owned by Co­pa Hold­ings, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Co­pa Air­lines. Colom­bian air­line SATE­NA has al­so in­def­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed flights, pledg­ing to re­sume ser­vice once in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties cer­ti­fy it is safe to do so.

These lat­est sus­pen­sions come 15 days af­ter the Unit­ed States is­sued a se­cu­ri­ty no­tice to air­lines fly­ing in Venezue­lan air­space. On No­vem­ber 21, 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”. A back­ground state­ment re­leased the same day al­so list­ed GPS in­ter­fer­ence as an op­er­a­tional haz­ard. The NO­TAM is ef­fec­tive through Feb­ru­ary 19, 2026.

Co­pa Air­lines, Wingo, and SATE­NA were among the last hold­outs still op­er­at­ing flights to the coun­try, af­ter six oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines sus­pend­ed flights to Venezuela cit­ing the US’ safe­ty ad­vi­so­ry. The coun­try’s In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Aeronáu­ti­ca Civ­il Venezuela (IN­AC) is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to those air­lines, in­struct­ing them to re­sume flights with­in 48 hours or have traf­fic rights sus­pend­ed. On No­vem­ber 26, IN­AC fol­lowed through with that threat, re­vok­ing the op­er­at­ing per­mits of Iberia, TAP, Avian­ca, LATAM, Turk­ish Air­lines, and Gol, strand­ing hun­dreds of Venezue­lans at­tempt­ing to get home in the process. IN­AC said the of­fend­ing air­lines had “joined ac­tions of state ter­ror­ism pro­mot­ed by the Unit­ed States” by “uni­lat­er­al­ly” halt­ing com­mer­cial flights. The air­lines have since hit back, say­ing the de­ci­sion was made with the safe­ty of their pas­sen­gers and crew in mind. The In­ter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port As­so­ci­a­tion (IA­TA), a trade or­gan­i­sa­tion rep­re­sent­ing over 350 of the world’s air­lines, has urged Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to re­con­sid­er their de­ci­sion.

With mul­ti­ple route sus­pen­sions in ef­fect, char­ter flights be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Mar­gari­ta re­main the on­ly air link be­tween the two coun­tries. Lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines an­nounced a sus­pen­sion of flights be­tween Port of Spain and Cara­cas on Sep­tem­ber 3. By Sep­tem­ber 12, the air­line be­gan plan­ning flights to and from Ja­maica and Cu­raçao to avoid Venezue­lan air­space en­tire­ly as a pre­cau­tion, though it did not pro­hib­it pi­lots from cross­ing it. Fast for­ward to to­day, and the air­line has now banned pi­lots from fly­ing through Venezue­lan air­space and is rout­ing flights fur­ther away from the Mai­quetía Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion (SVZM FIR).