Barbados Today

Citing “operational limitations”, the Colombian airline Avianca Monday announced the immediate suspension of its service between Bogota and Barbados.

In a statement, the company also said it had scheduled a transfer flight to accommodate those passengers left stranded in Barbados.

“Avianca requests travellers on the island to contact their local travel agency or to visit the airline’s service points at the Grantley Adams International Airport to reserve their tickets,” a press release issued by the company on Monday afternoon said.

It explained that the flight from Bogota to Barbados would leave at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. Barbados time) with the return flight scheduled to leave here at 7:50 p.m.

“Due to operational limitations, Avianca decided to suspend flights between Bogota and Barbados indefinitely,” the company said, while assuring that all efforts would be made to serve travellers with reservations on cancelled flights and to provide them with a solution.

“Avianca regrets the impact that the suspension of operations may have on customers and thanks [them for their] understanding to this measure aimed at preserving safety and security,” the airline added.

Just last week, the airline announced it would be suspending flights to Venezuela from August 16, but later changed the date to last Thursday, leaving passengers scrambling for new arrangements.

The move by one of Latin America’s largest airlines came on the same day that the Donald Trump administration in Washington announced sanctions against 13 Venezuelan senior officials, and the opposition scheduled what turned out to be a flop of a “4

8-hour strike”.

German Efromovich, the company’s chairman and main shareholder, has known links to the region’s right-wing elites including Argentina’s Mauricio Macri and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe.

In fact, according to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, Argentina’s judiciary is currently investigating Efromovich and Macri for a business deal involving presumed illicit association, and fraud against the public administration, among other things.

However, as in the case with Barbados, the company cited “security and operational limitations” as the reason for its Caracas suspension.