Passengers in Venezuela have had to improvise land and local flights—completing up to five trips—to reach border areas where they cross into Colombia in search of air connections following the suspension of international itineraries by airlines. In the state of Táchira (west), bordering Colombia, the airports General Cipriano Castro, located in San Antonio del Táchira, and Mayor Buenaventura Vivas Guerrero, in the parish of Santo Domingo, have become the arrival point for transit travelers to the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. One of these passengers was José Castro, who told EFE that he began his journey in the insular state of Nueva Esparta, from where he flew to Caracas. There, he took another flight to San Antonio del Táchira to cross by land to Cúcuta, where he planned to board a flight to Bogotá and from there to his final destination: Madrid. Castro said he bought the ticket to Spain for 900 euros, a decision to which many passengers who were stranded after 12 airlines canceled their itineraries to and from Venezuela in the last two weeks due to a warning from US authorities about the danger of flying over the country and the southern Caribbean, amid the deployment of US military forces off the coast of the South American country. The wave of cancellations has left Venezuela temporarily without international airlines offering flights. During his journey, this traveler bypassed the closure of the main land crossing between the two countries, the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, due to a protest by relatives of Colombians detained in Venezuela, who chained themselves and closed pedestrian and vehicular traffic at that border crossing to demand answers on their relatives' cases. Castro had to take a taxi to another bridge, known as 'Tienditas', about 10 kilometers from Simón Bolívar, to continue to Colombian soil. In 'Tienditas', José and Paola, a Venezuelan couple, arrived at the border from the state of Miranda (north), neighboring Caracas. They were heading to Cúcuta to reach the city of Medellín—in western Colombia—a trip they were making for the first time and that cost them about 540 dollars. 'I tried to find direct flights from Caracas to Medellín and couldn't. I had to come to the border,' they said. Following the flight cancellations, Venezuelan airlines are betting on opening new routes to destinations such as Bogotá and increasing the frequency of flights to border cities. According to the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the state of Táchira, Yionnel Contreras, starting December 8 and until January 18, 2026, the airline Estelar will activate four new frequencies from San Antonio to Caracas—on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays—to cover the high demand. When consulted by EFE, William Gómez, an expert on border issues, indicated, citing information provided by workers at the Cipriano Castro Airport, that all 26 flight itineraries at this airport this week were already fully booked, with an average of 6,000 passengers traveling. Gómez estimated that in the coming days, the flow of travelers could reach between 12,000 and 14,000 people, as Táchira is one of the preferred entry and exit routes between Venezuela and Colombia, taking into account that this terminal is only 15 minutes from the Camilo Daza Airport in Cúcuta.