Avior Airlines (9V, Barcelona José Antonio Anzoategui) has implored the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to revisit its still pending application for access to the Caracas Simón Bolivar-Miami International market in light of SBA Airlines' dormancy. SBA was, until recently, Venezuela's designated carrier on the route.
Avior is currently authorized to run regular passenger flights between Barcelona José Antonio Anzoategui and Miami and sought, in August 2016, to expand that authority to include the Caracas-Miami route.
However, 18 months after the application to the DOT for an amended exemption authority was submitted with no response, Avior has now sought to leverage SBA's suspension of operations to its advantage.
In its filing to the DOT last week, Avior said it had already been designated to the route by the Venezuelan civil aviation authority (Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil - INAC) and was now awaiting Washington's consent.
"In an effort to preserve much-needed service, the Government of Venezuela has designated and licensed Avior to provide service to replace the Santa Barbara service that has been terminated," it said. "Avior requests the Department amend its exemption to provide services such as Scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property, and mail between Caracas, Venezuela and Miami, Florida, either directly or via intermediate points in other countries, with or without stopovers."
According to the ch-aviation schedules database, Avior currently plies the Caracas-Miami route daily albeit using MD-83 equipment wet-leased from World Atlantic Airlines (WL, Miami International).
At present time, American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) is the only other scheduled passenger carrier active between Miami and Caracas.
