First US-Venezuela commercial flight in 7 years lands in Caracas

The first di­rect com­mer­cial flight be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela ar­rived Thurs­day in the cap­i­tal of the South Amer­i­can coun­try, sev­en years af­ter the U.S. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty De­part­ment or­dered an in­def­i­nite sus­pen­sion, cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

The re­sump­tion of a non­stop com­mer­cial flight be­tween the two coun­tries comes months af­ter the U.S. cap­ture of then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro in a stun­ning night­time raid on his res­i­dence in Cara­cas in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

It al­so comes a month af­ter the U.S. for­mal­ly re­opened its em­bassy in Cara­cas fol­low­ing the restora­tion of full diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Venezuela.

“I’m very ex­cit­ed to go and see the fam­i­ly, and I’m look­ing for­ward to see the coun­try,” said pas­sen­ger Lennart Ochoa of Mi­a­mi short­ly be­fore board­ing. He said that he was “ready to go” and got his tick­et as soon as they were avail­able. “Just to go and see the fam­i­ly on a di­rect flight from Mi­a­mi to Cara­cas is price­less.”

The di­rec­tor of the U.S. Na­tion­al En­er­gy Dom­i­nance Coun­cil, Jar­rod Agen, was among the pas­sen­gers on the in­au­gur­al flight. Agen is sched­uled to meet with Venezue­lan of­fi­cials and ex­ec­u­tives from en­er­gy and min­ing sec­tors as part of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ef­forts to fa­cil­i­tate the en­try of U.S. com­pa­nies in­to the South Amer­i­can coun­try, re­port­ed the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

At Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Amer­i­can Air­lines staff hand­ed pas­sen­gers small Venezue­lan flags. Bal­loons with its col­ors — yel­low, blue and red — adorned the gate door lead­ing to the plane.

Flight AA3599 op­er­at­ed by En­voy Air, a sub­sidiary of Amer­i­can Air­lines, de­part­ed Mi­a­mi at 10:11 a.m. EDT (1411 GMT), five min­utes ahead of its sched­uled time, ac­cord­ing to Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port flight de­par­ture in­for­ma­tion. It ar­rived around three hours lat­er in the Venezue­lan cap­i­tal, re­turn­ing to Flori­da lat­er in the af­ter­noon.

Ear­li­er, the air­line said that a sec­ond dai­ly flight be­tween Mi­a­mi and Cara­cas will start on May 21.

In late Jan­u­ary, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said that he in­formed Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez that he would open up all com­mer­cial air­space over the coun­try, al­low­ing Amer­i­cans to vis­it.

“Amer­i­can cit­i­zens will be very short­ly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there,” Trump said at the time.

The flights mark the re­sump­tion of non­stop trav­el be­tween the U.S. and Venezuela for the first time since diplo­mat­ic ties were sev­ered in 2019. For the past sev­en years, pas­sen­gers have re­lied on in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines and in­di­rect routes through neigh­bor­ing Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries.

In Jan­u­ary, when the air­line an­nounced the re­sump­tion of flights, it said it would give cus­tomers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­unite with fam­i­lies and pur­sue new busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Amer­i­can Air­lines was the last U.S. air­line fly­ing to Venezuela. It sus­pend­ed flights in 2019 be­tween Mi­a­mi and Cara­cas, as well as flights to the oil hub city of Mara­cai­bo. Delta and Unit­ed Air­lines pulled out in 2017 amid a po­lit­i­cal cri­sis that forced mil­lions to flee the coun­try.

“Par­ents will be able to con­nect with chil­dren, grand­par­ents with grand­chil­dren, and en­tire fam­i­lies with a home that shaped and raised them,” Mi­a­mi-Dade Coun­ty May­or Daniel­la Levine Ca­va said at a news con­fer­ence be­fore board­ing start­ed. “Mi­a­mi-Dade is home to the largest Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty in the Unit­ed States.”

CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)