Brent Pin­heiro

Days af­ter mul­ti­ple air­lines can­celled sched­uled com­mer­cial ser­vices to Venezuela, the coun­try’s In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Aeronáu­ti­ca Civ­il Venezuela (IN­AC) is is­su­ing an ul­ti­ma­tum to air­lines: re­sume ser­vice with­in 48 hours or risk hav­ing their traf­fic rights sus­pend­ed.

On Fri­day, the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) is­sued a No­tice to Air­men (NO­TAM) ad­vis­ing pi­lots to ex­er­cise cau­tion while op­er­at­ing in the Mai­quetía Flight In­for­ma­tion Re­gion (SVZM FIR). The NO­TAM specif­i­cal­ly warns pi­lots to ex­er­cise cau­tion at all al­ti­tudes, in­clud­ing dur­ing over­flight and the ar­rival and de­par­ture phas­es of flight. The ad­vi­so­ry says this is due to the “wors­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion and height­ened mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in or around Venezuela”.