The first direct commercial flight between the United States and\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0is scheduled to land on Thursday in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, seven years after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u00a0ordered an indefinite suspension, citing security concerns.<\/p>\n
Flight AA3599 operated by Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, departed from Miami just after 10 a.m. local time and is scheduled to arrive three hours later in the Venezuelan capital, returning to Florida later in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited to go and see the family and I\u2019m looking forward to see the country,\u201d said passenger Lennart Ochoa of Miami shortly before boarding. He said that he was \u201cready to go\u201d and got his ticket as soon as they were available.<\/p>\n
American Airlines staff handed passengers small Venezuelan flags. Balloons with its colors \u2014 yellow, blue and red \u2014 adorned the gate door leading to the plane.<\/p>\n
“Through the inaugural weekend, customers will enjoy a special Venezuelan menu on board, including cachapas, ensalada de gallina and a Venezuelan chocolate candy bar,” the airline said in a news release. <\/p>\n
The resumption of a commercial flight between the two countries comes in the wake of the U.S. capture of\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u00a0in a stunning\u00a0nighttime raid on his residence\u00a0in Caracas, Venezuela\u2019s capital, in early January.<\/p>\n
It also comes a month after the\u00a0U.S. formally reopened its embassy in Caracas\u00a0following the restoration of full diplomatic relations with the South American country.<\/p>\n
The airline said a second daily flight between Miami and Caracas will start on May 21.<\/p>\n
In late January, U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0said he informed Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez\u00a0that he would open up all commercial airspace over Venezuela, allowing Americans to visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they\u2019ll be safe there,\u201d Trump said at the time.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0the oil hub city of Maracaibo. Delta and United Airlines pulled out in 2017 amid a political crisis that forced millions to flee the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents will be able to connect with children, grandparents with grandchildren, and entire families with a home that shaped and raised them,\u201d Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference before boarding started. \u201cMiami-Dade is home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first direct commercial flight between the United States and\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0is scheduled to land on Thursday in the Venezuelan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,4390],"class_list":["post-253547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}