Travelers hoping for a smooth return from Caribbean getaways this New Year’s weekend were met with an unexpected and dramatic disruption, as a U.S. military operation in Venezuela sent shockwaves far beyond the country’s borders. On January 3, 2026, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him out of the country, a move that rippled through the region’s airspace and left tens of thousands of vacationers stranded across dozens of sun-soaked islands.
According to The Associated Press, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responded to the military activity by imposing sweeping airspace restrictions over the Caribbean. By early Saturday, no airline flights were crossing over Venezuela, and hundreds of flights across the eastern Caribbean were canceled. The FAA’s directive, aimed at U.S. commercial flights, halted travel to and from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Aruba, and more than a dozen other destinations in the Lesser Antilles north of Venezuela.
For many, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The holiday period is one of the busiest travel seasons for the Caribbean, with AAA projecting that over 122 million Americans would travel at least 50 miles from home. “The Caribbean is a top destination this time of the year,” AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz told AP. “We do have a lot of people who are trying to get back home this weekend ahead of work and school on Monday.”
As airlines scrambled to respond, passengers faced confusion and mounting expenses. Lou Levine, a software company manager from Washington, D.C., was supposed to return home with his family from Puerto Rico on Saturday. Instead, he found his flight canceled, and after hours of phone calls and social media messages, JetBlue rebooked them for a flight a week later. “I love it here. But we have dog-sitting and cat-sitting and car rental. It’s fine. It’s just really painful on the wallet,” Levine said to AP, highlighting the unexpected costs and complications many travelers faced.
Delta Air Lines began canceling flights early Saturday morning in compliance with the FAA order, affecting 13 Caribbean airports including San Juan, Aruba, St. Thomas, and St. Lucia. The airline issued a travel waiver for customers with bookings between January 3 and 6, 2026, and advised passengers to avoid impacted airports unless they had confirmed or rebooked tickets. Delta also announced plans to resume normal operations on Sunday, January 4, with additional flights and larger aircraft to help clear the backlog of stranded travelers, as reported by Delta News Hub and FOX 9.
Other airlines took similar steps. American Airlines told CNBC it added 17 extra flights between San Juan, Aruba, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, and its hubs in Miami and Charlotte. Southwest Airlines added six extra round-trips between San Juan on Sunday and another eight on Monday, plus two more flights to Aruba. United Airlines and Delta also evaluated using their largest planes, like Boeing 777-300s, to accommodate the surge in demand.
Despite these efforts, many travelers found themselves stuck with no available seats for days. Airline websites showed flights fully booked, and some passengers took to social media to vent their frustration and seek help. “We are looking for opportunities to add more capacity to both places in the coming days,” Southwest said in a statement quoted by CNBC. The surge in demand for limited seats meant that, even as airlines added flights, many customers still faced extended delays.
The impact was felt across nearly two dozen island destinations, including Anguilla, Antigua, Curacao, St. Lucia, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and others. At Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, nearly 60% of all flights were canceled on January 3, according to FlightAware.com. By Sunday, cancellations had dropped to about 20, compared to 400 the day before, but the backlog of stranded passengers remained significant.
The chaos extended beyond air travel. Cruise operator Virgin Voyages offered full credits for future trips to passengers unable to reach San Juan in time for their cruise departures, acknowledging the far-reaching consequences of the airspace closure. In Barbados, Prime Minister Mia Mottley described the situation as “exceedingly disruptive” to both air and sea ports, underscoring the broader economic and logistical impact on the region.
Foreign airlines and military aircraft were not included in the FAA restrictions, allowing some international flights to continue operating. Air Canada, for example, said its flights to the Caribbean were operating normally, though it gave travelers the option to rebook. Dutch carrier KLM canceled flights affecting thousands but planned to resume service on Sunday to and from Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, and other islands.
Sun Country Airlines canceled flights in St. Thomas, San Juan, and Aruba, with uncertainty about how long the airspace would remain closed. The airline advised customers to monitor their emails for updates, as reported by FOX 9.
For individual travelers, the experience ranged from the mildly inconvenient to the deeply stressful. Darius Nabors, a 40-year-old from Atlanta, learned of the U.S. operation to capture Maduro while en route to the San Juan airport. His flight was canceled, and he found himself unexpectedly extending his vacation, but with only a backpack’s worth of belongings. “On the one hand, you’re like, cool, I have two extra days of vacation,” he told The New York Times. “On the other hand, you’re like, is this going to be seven extra days of vacation? I only brought a backpack.”
The FAA’s decision to let the airspace closure expire at midnight EST on January 3 allowed airlines to begin resuming normal operations on Sunday, January 4. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the lifting of restrictions, and airlines moved quickly to restore schedules and clear the backlog. However, the ripple effects of the disruption meant that some travelers would remain stranded for days, especially as previously scheduled flights were already packed at the end of the holiday season.
While the FAA’s restrictions were short-lived, the episode underscored how military actions—even those far from tourist hotspots—can disrupt civilian air travel on a massive scale. As CNBC noted, airlines have faced similar challenges during conflicts in the Middle East and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, sometimes rerouting or suspending flights for extended periods.
The U.S. operation in Venezuela, which resulted in the capture and indictment of Nicolás Maduro on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, may have been a decisive moment in international politics, but for many, it will be remembered as the event that turned a Caribbean holiday into an unexpected—and, for some, costly—adventure. As airlines and airports return to normal, travelers and industry leaders alike are left to ponder how quickly the world can change with a single flashpoint, and how closely our global routines are tied to events far beyond our control.
