Airlines Suspend Service to Venezuela Following FAA Warning About Increased Military Activity in Region

International airlines are increasingly cancelling flights to Venezuela after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration warned pilots to use caution when flying in the country’s airspace because of worsening security and heightened military activity.Marisela de Loaiza, president of the Airlines Association in Venezuela, told The Associated Press that six carriers have indefinitely suspended flights — TAP, LATAM, Avianca, Iberia, Gol and Caribbean. Turkish Airlines suspended flights between November 24 and 28.The rise in tensions in the region comes just hours before the State Department officially designates a Venezuelan gang known as the Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The designation gives the administration heightened powers to ramp up pressure on the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and his compatriots.The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, complained about the tension’s impact on travel to and from neighboring Venezuela, insisting in a social media post that “there must be regular flights to all Latin American countries and from Latin America and the world.”On Friday, the FAA warned pilots that unspecified threats “could pose a potential risk to aircraft at all altitudes” as well as planes taking off and landing in the country and even aircraft on the ground.The warning came as the Trump administration has ramped up other forms of pressure on Mr. Maduro. The American military has conducted bomber flights up to the coast of Venezuela, sometimes as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack, and sent the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford into the region.The aircraft carrier and several destroyers were just the latest addition to the largest American force assembled in the Caribbean near Venezuela in generations. The Trump administration does not see Mr. Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the United States, as the legitimate leader of the South American country following a 2024 presidential election that many nations in the hemisphere labeled as fraudulent.The Trump administration also has carried out a series of strikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that it accuses of ferrying drugs to the United States, killing over 80 people in total since the campaign began in early September.On Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported that the Trump administration is poised to launch what it described as a “new phase” of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days. Among the measures being considered, according to unnamed officials cited by the report, are efforts to overthrow Mr. Maduro’s regime.“President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” one official told the agency.A poll released by CBS News Sunday suggested that a majority of Americans are opposed to military action in Venezuela without clearer indications from the White House what threat the South American country poses to the United States. The same poll found that about half of Americans — including almost all Republicans — support the administration’s recent attacks on drug vessels in the area.

Airlines Suspend Service to Venezuela Following FAA Warning About Increased Military Activity in Region

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