The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced last week that Nicaragua is compliant with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety standards and has been granted a Category 1 rating.
The announcement follows an audit and follow-up inspection of the Central American nation's aviation landscape in June and September respectively.
With the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Category 1 rating, Nicaraguan air carriers, which are able to secure the requisite FAA and DOT authority, can establish service to the United States as well as codeshare with US carriers.
At present, the Nicaragua-United States market is dominated by Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson), American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth), Spirit Airlines (NK, Fort Lauderdale International), United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) and Amerijet International (M6, Miami International) with Avianca (Bogotá) subsidiary TACA International Airlines (San Salvador International) the only Latin American operator.
Currently La Costeña (LC, Managua), also owned by Avianca (Bogotá), is the only known large scale Nicaraguan scheduled operator.
