After a nine-year pause, United announced Tuesday that it will resume nonstop service to Venezuela.
Starting Aug. 11, the carrier will reconnect Houston Bush and Caracas with daily flights. United will use a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft on the route.
Tickets are now available for purchase.
“After nearly a decade, United welcomes the opportunity to resume service between Houston and Venezuela thanks to the leadership and support of the Department of Transportation and the U.S. government,” Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, said in a news release. “This flight will help strengthen cultural and economic ties across the Americas and further reinforces United’s Houston hub as a leading gateway to the region.”
United suspended flights to Venezuela in June 2017, two years before the Department of Homeland Security and the DOT banned all U.S. passenger and cargo flights to the country. The agencies cited safety concerns and the possible degradation of airport facilities.
The ban was lifted earlier this year after U.S. military and law enforcement personnel captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges. Relations between the two countries have normalized somewhat in the months since, and in March, regulators approved American Airlines’ planned service between Miami and Caracas.
That connection – the first nonstop air link between the U.S. and Venezuela in about seven years – launched April 30.
In a statement, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Houston-Caracas flights “will be critical to ferrying oil sector workers into the country as the U.S. and Venezuela work together to expand production and generate new economic opportunities.”
