US warns of risks for flights over Venezuela airspace

The Unit­ed States has is­sued a se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­so­ry for air­craft op­er­at­ing in the Mai­quetía Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion (SVZM FIR) due to a po­ten­tial­ly haz­ardous sit­u­a­tion and height­ened mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in and around Venezuela.

The ad­vi­so­ry said op­er­a­tors are ad­vised to ex­er­cise cau­tion at all al­ti­tudes, in­clud­ing dur­ing over­flights, ar­rivals, de­par­tures, and while on the ground at air­ports.

Mai­quetía is a coastal city in Venezuela, lo­cat­ed in Var­gas state. Simón Bolí­var In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port is lo­cat­ed in the city, which serves as a ma­jor trans­porta­tion hub.

It sits on a small plateau near the Caribbean Sea, about 37 kilo­me­tres south­east of Cara­cas, the cap­i­tal city.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2025, civ­il air­craft tran­sit­ing the SVZM FIR have re­port­ed in­ter­fer­ence with Glob­al Nav­i­ga­tion Satel­lite Sys­tems, which can af­fect com­mu­ni­ca­tion, nav­i­ga­tion, sur­veil­lance, and safe­ty equip­ment up to 250 nau­ti­cal miles away. Some flights ex­pe­ri­enced lin­ger­ing ef­fects through­out their jour­neys.

A se­nior avi­a­tion source ex­plained the broad­er con­text, say­ing, “The whole world, the glob­al air­space is di­vid­ed in­to flight in­for­ma­tion re­gions, and air­craft fly where they pro­vide nav­i­ga­tion ser­vices.

“Air­lines are al­so al­lowed to fly over the sov­er­eign air­space of an­oth­er coun­try be­cause of the in­ter­na­tion­al air tran­sit agree­ment. But in this case, be­cause of the hos­til­i­ties be­tween the Venezue­lans and the US, the FAA ad­vi­so­ry is on­ly telling US car­ri­ers to ex­er­cise cau­tion.”

The source added, “This is not a ban. The US gov­ern­ment is ad­vis­ing its com­mer­cial car­ri­ers be­cause Venezuela per­ceives the US as an ad­ver­sary due to the flotil­la of ships and air­craft car­ri­ers in the re­gion. The FAA is ask­ing US op­er­a­tors to pro­vide 72 hours’ ad­vance no­tice of planned flights and re­port any safe­ty or se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dents ob­served in the af­fect­ed air­space.”

Venezuela has al­so con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es and mo­bilised thou­sands of mil­i­tary and re­serve forces as the US in­creas­es its mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion.