Transcarga International Airways (T7, Caracas Simón Bolivar) is hoping to resume cargo flights between Venezuela and the United States using a third-country stopover.
Last month, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) banned all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the troubled South American state and the United States and v.v. citing safety and security risks associated with serving Venezuela.
However, in an application for exemption to the DOT filed June 5, Transcarga said it planned to initially operate 3x weekly cargo charter flights from Caracas Simón Bolivar to Miami International using either of Panamá City Tocumen International (where it had once planned to establish its now abandoned Transcarga Panama project), Santo Domingo Las Américas, or Bogotá as a technical stop for both inbound and outbound flights to the US. The 2nd freedom flights would have no onward traffic rights between the intermediate points and the US.
"These [...] third countries’ airports would be used, instead, for the screening of cargo and performance of other measures and procedures effectively neutralizing all risk factors found by the US Government agencies..., before arriving to the US or after departing the US," it said.
If the exemption is granted, operations would be onboard one of the Venezuelan carrier's two leased A300B4-203(F)s.
For their part, Venezuelan passenger carriers have also considered employing a similar technique albeit requiring passengers to disembark in the third country before boarding an onward flight to the United States which is operated by a US carrier.
