Venezuela’s primary airport was damaged in last week’s earthquakes that killed at least 1,700 people, severely restricting air travel into and out of the country. The airport, in La Guaira state, where the worst of the damage was concentrated, is indefinitely closed to commercial traffic.
Several carriers, including American Airlines and Copa Airlines, have canceled flights to the airport, Simón Bolívar International, near Caracas, through July 2 or 3, though it is far from assured that it will reopen by then. Some military and aid flights have been able to land.
Here’s what to know about flights into and out of Venezuela as recovery from the earthquakes continues.
Which international flights are affected?
American Airlines, which in April became the first U.S. carrier to resume direct flights between the United States and Venezuela since a ban imposed by President Trump in 2019, has canceled all flights on its Miami-to-Caracas route since the quakes. The company offered fee waivers for affected passengers scheduled to travel between June 25 and July 3.
The airline plans to resume flights to Caracas “once the airport reopens for commercial flights,” Laura Masvidal, a spokeswoman for the airline, said in an email on Tuesday. American is also scheduled to begin service between Miami and Maracaibo, in Venezuela’s northwest, on July 14, Ms. Masvidal said.
United Airlines, which plans to begin nonstop service between Houston and Caracas in August, said that it would make “no changes to the schedule as of now.”
Some flights from Central and South American nations have continued to other cities in Venezuela, but a majority of the country’s international air traffic went through Caracas.
The damage to the city’s airport is likely to disrupt travel plans for thousands of passengers each day until it reopens. On the day the earthquakes struck, there were 85 domestic and international flights, totaling more than 12,000 seats, scheduled to take off from and land at the airport, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm.
How badly were Venezuela’s airports damaged?
The U.S. military over the weekend cleared one of two runways at Simón Bolívar airport for use, but videos showed severe damage to the airport’s buildings.
Other major airports in the country fared better. Avianca and Copa Airlines, which offer connecting flights from the United States to Venezuela via their hubs in Colombia and Panama, have each increased their flights to Valencia, a city about 100 miles west of Caracas, per the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
The embassy said international flights were also operating from the Venezuelan cities of Barquisimeto, Barcelona and Maracaibo, though each of those airports offers only a handful of routes.
When will international flights fully resume?
It’s not clear. But the number of international flights to Venezuela was set to grow in the coming months before the earthquakes hit, with 114 nonstop flights across three routes from the United States to Venezuela scheduled for August, up from 60 flights on one route in June.
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