‘A new chapter’: first commercial fight from US since 2019 lands in Venezuela

US and Venezuelan officials have hailed a new era in diplomatic relations as the first direct commercial flight between the two countries in more than seven years landed in Caracas. Nearly four months ago, US special forces attack helicopters and planes swept into the skies over Venezuela’s capital after Donald Trump ordered the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro . On Thursday afternoon it was a very different kind of aircraft that descended towards Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar international airport: an American Airlines passenger jet from Miami, heralding the start of a strange new chapter in the long toxic ties between Caracas and Washington. “This is a historic day,” José Freig, the carrier’s vice-president of international operations, declared before handing Venezuela’s transport minister, Jacqueline Faría, a model of one of his company’s planes. Faría holding the replica aircraft during a press conference with Freig (right). Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/ Speaking in Spanish, the US chargé d’affaires in Venezuela, John Barrett, hailed a “historic milestone”: “We are witnessing the reconstruction of our economic ties, Venezuela’s reopening to global commerce, and the reconnecting of our peoples.” Barrett called the new flight “a direct result” of Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio’s three-phase plan for post-Maduro Venezuela: stabilising Venezuela, rebooting its moribund economy and eventually securing a political transition back towards democracy. …