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CARACAS – A growing number of international airlines have decided to cancel flights to Venezuela as of Sunday. This comes after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a cautionary alert to pilots, advising them to exercise increased vigilance when navigating Venezuelan airspace due to escalating security concerns and intensified military operations.
According to Marisela de Loaiza, head of the Airlines Association in Venezuela, six airlines have indefinitely halted their flights to the country. These include TAP, LATAM, Avianca, Iberia, Gol, and Caribbean Airlines. Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines has paused its services from November 24 to November 28.
In a statement posted on X, Colombian President Gustavo Petro emphasized the importance of maintaining regular flights to and from Latin America. He asserted, “Regular flights to all Latin American countries must continue, as well as from Latin America to the rest of the world.”
President Petro further remarked, “Blocking countries is tantamount to blocking their people, which constitutes a crime against humanity.”
The FAA’s advisory, issued on Friday, highlighted unspecified threats that may endanger aircraft at any altitude, including those taking off, landing, or on the ground within Venezuela.
The warning came as the Trump administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. 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 Ford aircraft carrier and several destroyers were just the latest addition to the largest U.S. force assembled in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela in generations. The Trump administration does not see Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S., as the legitimate leader of the South American country.
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 U.S., killing over 80 people in total since the campaign began in early September.
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