Copa Airlines and SkyHigh, among others, will suspend flights to cities in Venezuela as of 8:00 p.m. on July 31 (local time).
The reason is the temporary ban announced by the Venezuelan Ministry of Transport to airlines from Panama and the Dominican Republic, whose governments questioned the transparency of the presidential elections held on Sunday, July 28.
The current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, claimed to have won the election with 51.2% of the votes, but the opposition says that candidate Edmundo González Urrutia would have won by a wide margin, of around 70%.
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The National Electoral Council, which released the official results, has been asked to release the vote tallies in the election so that the data can be verified.
The measure, which has no deadline, affects the operations of several airlines and makes it difficult to provide flights to and from Venezuela.
Copa Airlines expressed its regret in a statement about the situation, “which is completely beyond the company’s control, and is doing everything possible to minimize the impact of this measure on its customers.”
In addition to Copa and SkyHigh, other airlines affected include Venezuela’s Avior, Rutaca and Turpial.
The Maduro government protested what it called “interference by right-wing governments” in the elections.
In addition to Panama and the Dominican Republic, countries such as Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay also reacted to what they considered fraud.
However, Venezuela has not received flights from several neighboring countries for some time, minimizing the impact of the government’s repudiation measure.
