The American airline United Airlines resumed its flights between the United States and Managua this Wednesday, January 4, after almost three years of suspension due to the covid-19 pandemic.
The United Airlines airlift was officially reopened at 1:15 PM, when the Boeing 737-800, which operates flight UA1432, landed in the Nicaraguan capital from the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, reported a trade union organization Aviation of Nicaragua.
The source indicated that the United Airlines B738 twin-engine jet arrived at the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport “at full capacity”, that is, with 150 passengers in economy seats and 16 in first class.
The aircraft covered the 2,200 kilometers between Hosuton and Managua in three hours and 30 minutes, where the aeronautics union received the occupants with a party atmosphere, according to Aviación de Nicaragua.
This is the second US airline to restore flights between the United States and Nicaragua in recent months, after American Airlines – the largest airline in the world, depending on the parameter used to measure it – did so on November 30.
With the return of American, tourism entrepreneurs expressed the expectation that increased seat availability, improve the air connectivity of the country, which will benefit the tourism industry in general, which is one of the hardest hit sectors of the national economy. First, due to the effects of the socioeconomic crisis that broke out in April 2018, and then, due to the reverberations of the covid-19 pandemic.
The regime’s barriers to airlines
Both US companies delayedon repeated occasions, his return to Nicaragua for the barriers it imposed on airlines the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, among which was the obligation to know the composition of the crews three days in advance, and to demand that they present vaccination certificates, a measure that It was always incomprehensible to companies in the sector tourism, because they were required at the same time that Nicaragua was promoting activities that entailed high possibilities of contagion.
In June 2022, the Ministry of Health announced the relaxation of those requirementsamong which are maintained the requirement to know the shipping list in advanceapparently, to exercise the abusive veto that the Migration authorities have implemented to prevent Nicaraguans and foreigners who they consider undesirable from entering the country.
Although companies such as the Panamanian COPA Airlines and the Salvadoran TACA —owned by the Colombian Avianca— did agree to comply with these requirements, the American, United and Spirit companies refrained from choosing a return date. The latter is still in the same situation, while Delta Airlines ‘took flight’ definitively.
