The carrier is one-upping American Airlines with plans for a higher-capacity route using 166-seat Boeing 737s.
United Airlines plans to restart flights to Venezuela as the relationship between Washington and Caracas continues to thaw, ending a nearly decade-long period in which United did not fly to the South American country.
The carrier says that once-daily Boeing 737 Max 8 flights between Houston and Caracas are due to launch on 11 August.
United voluntarily withdrew from Venezuela in June 2017, before the US Department of Transportation banned all US-Venezuela flights due to political and civil instability in May 2019. Previously, United had operated flights to Venezuela for more than 20 years.
“In recent years, the lack of a nonstop link between the US and Venezuela resulted in one of the largest gaps in air service in the Americas, and we’ve been eager to resume service as soon as conditions allowed,” Patrick Quayle, Unites’ senior vice-president, global network planning and alliances, said on 12 May.
United is following the lead of American Airlines, which became the first US carrier to return to Venezuela on 30 April with Miami-Caracas flights using Embraer 170-family regional jets.
While American is seemingly dipping a toe in the small, developing market with 65-to-70-seat aircraft, United is more aggressively deploying 166-seat Boeing narrowbodies on the planned Houston-Caracas route.
American had previously operated routes to Venezuela from 1987 to 2019 but stopped flying there as diplomatic ties between the Trump administration and Maduro’s regime were severed.
The landscape changed significantly in late January, after a brazen US military operation captured former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, effectively decapitating the state and ushering in a new era of relations between the two countries.
At the time, American indicated that it would resume flights to the country as soon as possible.
Less than a month removed from Maduro’s capture, Trump ordered US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to reopen Venezuelan airspace. Duffy responded by saying the DOT would be “clearing the way” for air travel to resume between the two countries.
A number of Latin American carriers – including Avianca, Copa Airlines and LATAM Airlines – connect the USA to Venezuela via third cities. Venezuela’s Laser Airlines has also renewed attempts to establish passenger service to Miami.
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