With the continued political and social unrest continue to develop in Venezuela, Spanish airline, Iberia has had to look at alternatives on its lucrative Madrid-Caracas flight.
Iberia has now advised its staff that flights to Caracas will now make a stop in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where it will do a crew change over, the new crew will then fly the aircraft down to Caracas before returning to Madrid. This avoids a potentially dangerous night stop-over for the crew in Venezuela.
A similar strategy was adopted by United when they introduced a brief stop-over point at Aruba in their direct Houston - Caracas route. However, this combined with the continued unrest in the country has caused United to suspend the route, at least for the foreseeable future.
Iberia issued a statement announcing that it had no intentions to axe their historic Caracas route. However, a few extra security measures had to be taken to “guarantee the safety of their crew”, they say decision will be temporary “until uncertainty dissipates.”. Spain are among a large number of nations that have advised their citizens not to travel to the South American country.