U.S. flights to Venezuela will resume next week after a seven-year hiatus. A big question for many travelers is securing passports and visas again — but, even though there is still no Venezuelan consulate in Miami, many expats say the docs process has actually improved.
Flights between the U.S. and Venezuela were halted in 2019 when the countries broke diplomatic relations. But now — after the U.S. removed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January — American Airlines will begin flights between Miami (Miami International Airport) and Caracas (Simón Bolívar International Airport, or Maiquetía) again on April 30.
The Miami Herald first reported the flight resumption plan on Sunday.
Many here in the diaspora, though, will need to renew their Venezuelan passports for entry there, and non-Venezuelans will need visas — an anxiety for many given that for years neither group has had access to a Venezuelan consulate in Miami and its traveler identity papers services.
Several Venezuelan migrants who have recently decided to self-deport from the U.S., under pressure from the Trump administration, say they have not been able to leave for Venezuela because they have not been able to get valid Venezuelan passports.
Still, expats like Moraima Garcia of Palmetto Bay say an easier Venezuelan government online process is helping to compensate.
“The right to identity papers has admittedly been taken away from the [Venezuelan] diaspora over the years, because we don’t have a consulate here," Garcia said.
"But now that Maduro is in jail, that’s one of the few things that has actually improved at least inside Venezuela.”
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There is still no Venezuelan consulate in Miami. But those documents are being expedited now on the website of SAIME, Venezuela’s Identification and Immigration Services.
Venezuelans without a valid Venezuelan passport for entry into Venezuela, for example, can use the SAIME site to make an appointment at a SAIME office inside Venezuela to renew their passports. Meanwhile, they can secure a Venezuelan government-issued permit to let them enter the country to do that.
“Passports are coming out quicker than it used to be," Garcia said. "It’s expensive, though.”
Venezuelan passport renewal now costs more than $200.
American says it will start the new Miami-Caracas route with smaller regional jets until it can determine the size of demand.
Speaking to throngs of Venezuelan exiles in Spain over the weekend, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado dialed up her call for the diaspora to return to Venezuela, either to visit or live, to help move the country toward a democratic transition, including new presidential elections, in the wake of Maduro's ouster.
