16 de julio 2024
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A technical expert and former official of Nicaragua’s International Airport Administration Company (EAAI) detailed to Esta Semana and CONFIDENCIAL how the charter flights operation is organized, which uses Nicaragua as a springboard to promote irregular migration to the United States.
The former state employee whom we identify as Orlando to protect his safety, resigned from his position in 2023 and has resided outside Nicaragua ever since. Orlando revealed the existence of Easy Aviation, a company registered in Miami, Florida, with offices in the International Airport of Managua, as the main intermediary between the charter flights, the EAAI, the Directorate of Migration, Civil Aeronautics, the airlines, and the migrants.
The operation began in 2021 with an airlift between Havana and Managua to transport thousands of Cuban migrants to the United States, and it has continued uninterrupted for four years, diversifying with intercontinental flights. Between May 2023 and May 2024, an estimated 1475 charter flights arrived at Managua International Airport with more than 191,000 passengers, mostly from Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and other Caribbean countries. There were also 30 to 40 intercontinental charter flights from Libya, Senegal, India, several Asian countries, and European airports in Germany and France.
We asked Orlando who is behind it and how this flow of several hundred thousand migrants, primarily from Cuba and Haiti in the Caribbean, and from various African and Asian countries, is organized at the International Airport. The operation also represents a multimillion-dollar business. He responded:“This is a mafia, it's like a Netflix or Hollywood movie. They use institutions that are supposed to be serious to carry out something illicit, such as the transportation of migrants who arrive without legal status.”
Orlando, you worked for almost ten years at the Nicaragua International Airport Administration Company, in Managua. What was your job at the airport?
My work in the International Airport Administration Company was the coordination and execution of the ground operations, both commercial and charter flights. Within the charter flights, this included operations of flights of famous personalities or artists arriving in the country as well as charter flights of migrants coming mainly from Cuba, Haiti, as well as from other continents such as Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
What we did was to carry out the ground operation, as it is known, which is to send flight plans to Civil Aeronautics to approve the departure or entry of the aircraft, as well as refueling, and unloading luggage of the aircraft. Then we bill for the services rendered and charge the different customers.
During the last four years, and especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Airport became a destination for charter flights mainly from the Caribbean, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, and later from Europe and Asia, with thousands of migrants using Managua as a springboard to travel irregularly to the United States. How did the charter flights start?
In the context of the pandemic and post-pandemic, charter flights began with flights to and from the United States and Europe. The objective was to repatriate citizens from these countries. This also included Nicaraguans who had been abroad and were stranded when the skies were practically closed, since there were no commercial flights and aviation was almost completely paralyzed worldwide.
Subsequently, we began to see flights from the Caribbean, mainly with Cuban citizens, who came to Nicaragua for shopping tourism, according to what we were told in the meetings before handling these flights. However, several months later, it became clear to all the workers that the main reason for their entry was to springboard to the United States. One plane, for example, was filled with 150 Cuban passengers, and five, or at most ten, returned. These same migrants were astonished to see the stocked refrigerators, so we already knew that they were not coming for shopping tourism because of their demeanor.
These flights from the Caribbean with Cubans and Haitians were scheduled daily with at least five flights with between 50 and 150 passengers. This remained constant until the U.S. State Department established the humanitarian parole program, and there was a drop in the operation.
The Connection to Easy Aviation, The Middle Man
These flights, some via commercial airlines and some via charter flights, how were they organized? You speak from the point of view of the Airport Management Company, but was there an intermediary between the airlines and the airport, or another intermediary to organize these flights?
Yes, initially, there were commercial airlines. After the flights were suspended and the airlines were unable to provide the service due to restrictions, some travel agencies hired a company called Easy Aviation Inc. This company acts as a handler, serving as the intermediary between the charter airline, Managua International Airport, Civil Aviation, and, of course, the final customers, which are the migrants and travel agencies. That was how the operations were conducted.
The company you mentioned, Easy Aviation, has been registered in Miami since 2018 or earlier, but it has its offices at Managua International Airport. Why is that, and what are its functions?
Easy Aviation is an air logistics company, or handler, as it's known in the airline industry, responsible for acting as an intermediary between airlines, charter companies, the airport, Civil Aviation, and private migrant passengers, often working with travel agencies. Easy Aviation hires the charter airline to fly a specific route, then manages and pays for the Civil Aeronautics permits. When the plane is in the country or lands at the airport, it pays the Airport Company for services rendered, such as landing and take-off fees, operations, and ramp personnel, among other services. It is also responsible for charging the final customer, either the travel agency or the migrants directly.
The board of directors of this company registered in the United States is made up of three Nicaraguans, one of them Nicaraguan-American Silvio Otero Quiroz, who is the president; Geovanny Jaen Arróliga, who is the vice-president; and Iván Abdul Olivares Lacayo, who is the secretary. Do these three people have their offices at the Managua International Airport?
They operate and have their office at the Managua Airport, but the only operator and the one who articulates the operations of the migrant flights, as well as the other charter flights, is Geovanny Jaen, who is the one who appears as manager and partner of Easy Aviation. He gets the permits expeditiously approved by Civil Aeronautics. He does not have any objection from the Civil Aeronautics authorities and once he has his permit approved, he sends the scheduling and flight plans to us at the airport. Likewise, once the flight arrived and the operation was finished, he paid immediately at the Treasury of private flights (at) the offices of the Airport Administration Company, once the plane took off.
Is this company the only one that performs this intermediary function or are there several national or international companies that perform this type of work?
At the Managua Airport, only Geovanny Jaen, through Easy Aviation, is the one who exercises and articulates the operation of this type of migrant charter flight. There is no other company in charge of managing or carrying out this operation.
Caribbean flights: Cuban and Haitian flights
But, for example, the flights originating in Cuba since the end of 2020 and 2021, were direct flights of migrants from Cuba. There are also charter flights from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other points in the Caribbean that travel to Nicaragua to migrate irregularly to the United States. This is an operation that has continued in 2022 and 2023. How is this operation organized? Because in some cases they are airlines that operate commercially and in others they are charter flights.
Yes, in the case of charter flights, such as those from Kingston, Jamaica, and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, it’s organized by Easy Aviation. Being registered in the United States, they have access to a network of charter airlines.
They negotiate agreements with these airlines, determining specific charges based on the route. Then, Geovanny from Easy Aviation manages permits and oversees operations in Managua for Cuban migrants.
The main charter airlines operating include Sky High, registered and operating from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, using Brazilian-made Embraer 145 and Embraer 190 aircraft, accommodating 50 to 100 passengers. Another registered company in the Dominican Republic is Air Century, which operates Bombardier CRJ aircraft with a capacity of 50 passengers, along with Airbus A320s capable of carrying 150 passengers. The one that did surprise me quite a bit was Viva Aerobus, the second-largest commercial airline in Mexico. They do not regularly do charter flights, however, they operate routes via Havana-Cancun and Cancun-Managua, they only operate Airbus 320s with a capacity of up to 186 passengers. I was surprised because they regularly only operate commercial flights from Mexico, and to the United States and Central America, but I was surprised to see that they were transporting mainly Cuban migrants.
There are also airlines, I don't know if they are commercial or state-owned, Venezuelan airlines that provide a direct bridge between Havana and Managua.
Yes. In the case of Conviasa, they operated directly afterward because they already had the permit from Aeronáutica Civil. Before the pandemic, Conviasa flew from Havana to Managua in the context of shopping tourism by Cuban citizens who went to buy at the Mercado Oriental (one of the biggest markets in Central America) and returned to Cuba.
But later, at the time of the boom of migrants to the southern border of the United States, Conviasa only transported migrants. There was no shopping tourism anymore, and they operated that way with a direct flight from Havana to Managua, with two different types of aircraft, they had an Embraer 190 with a capacity of approximately 100 passengers and an Airbus 340 with a capacity of up to 320, 350 passengers.
Control at the International Airport
Who are the authorities at the International Airport that facilitate this arrangement? I don’t know if there’s a written agreement between Easy Aviation as an intermediary of these operations and the International Airport to carry out the charter flights. Who is in charge of executing this at the airport?
Operationally, within the Airport, there is the General Manager, who was recently fired, Eli Romero, and a few weeks ago the Deputy Director was just appointed, who is in charge of the general operation of the whole Company.
And of the directions in the Airport Services Management, well, it was Captain Francisco Guerrero Castillo, who was the one who organized and supervised in general both charter flights and commercial flights, and subordinate to Guerrero Castillo is the National Police Commissioner, Dimas Rivera, who was the chief of operations and practically in charge of organizing the ramp teams that worked in flight to the aviation mechanics that attended and landed the planes, among other functions.
Is he a police commissioner on secondment to the airport?
He is not even on duty. He arrives dressed as you see him with his degree on his shoulder, with a National Police cap, dressed 100% as a policeman.
What is the relationship between the Directorate of Civil Aeronautics and the Directorate of Immigration in this operation, in coordination with the International Airport and the intermediary company?
Civil Aeronautics is the regulating entity of commercial and non-commercial aviation in the State of Nicaragua. They are in charge of giving permission and certifying that the flights are operated safely, and that there is no discrepancy in terms of a certain airline because it has a deficit of quality in the service and maintenance of its airplanes. They are also in charge of approving the routes of the flights. They are the ones who say this route is approved, it is not approved.
Migration, on the other hand, is the one in charge of admitting migrants or not, it is an important job. If the passengers are supposed to be tourists arriving, there has to be a guideline, a hotel reservation as it is done in Panama, that you have to bring 500 or 1000 dollars in cash. They don’t do that with this type of passenger. They are even charged in a certain way an extortion fee because they do not even pay what they should be charged, which is 10 dollars. On the contrary, they have to pay 150 for a safe-conduct and the migration authorities do not even stamp the passports of the migrants.
Do the Migration authorities exercise any control, any supervision over the suitability and status of the migrants, who in many cases also come from countries to which Nicaragua does not ask for a visa?
No. In that case, the migration agents already know. They already have the order. They even set them aside, they make a special line for this type of migrant passenger and they already have the order to charge them the fee that they are charged and to send them off, they already leave the airport and start their journey on foot to the United States.
Intercontinental flights
To get an idea of the scale of this operation, which continued in 2023 and continues this year 2024, between May 2023 and May 2024, an estimated 1475 charter flights with more than 191,000 passengers arrived at the International Airport, mostly from Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and other Caribbean countries. There were also some 30 to 40 intercontinental charter flights from Libya, Senegal, India, several Asian countries, and European airports in Germany and France. How is this other extra-continental operation organized?
The intercontinental operation is more complex, with at least 16, to 18 hours of flight time from Africa, Asia, or Eastern Europe. In reality, the migrants do not leave Germany and France, the plane goes through France or Germany for technical reasons to refuel, some of them are 22-hour flights, in which they need to refuel, a technical stopover. It’s organized this way and we do not see such a large flow as we saw with the Cuban and Haitian migrants.
It is possible to estimate the cost of the services charged by the international airport for these charter flights, both those coming from the Caribbean and extra-continental flights?
To give you an estimate we would have to divide the operation. For example, Cuba, when they made the technical stopover in Kingston, Jamaica, or in any of the other Caribbean islands, they were more or less billed between 8,000 to 12,000 dollars, depending on the type of aircraft, based on the weight of the aircraft. There were planes with a capacity of 50 passengers, which was more or less between 8,000 and 10,000 dollars, and when they were planes with a capacity of 150 passengers, they were charged 12,000 dollars, approximately. For intercontinental flights with a capacity of 350, 450 passengers, it was from 18,000 to 22,000 dollars, depending on the aircraft.
That is the cost of the operating services at the airport. Is the cost of the airline a separate service?
The leasing of the aircraft is the most expensive, depending on the aircraft. For example, the plane we used for the flights from Miami to Managua when the US border was closed, was more or less 180,000 to 200,000 dollars. The Havana-Cancun-Managua route was about $150,000.
How do you assess the impact that this large Nicaraguan bridge operation or springboard for irregular migrant traffic has had on the airport services and outside the airport, on that land route to the northern border?
The impact it had on the airport's finances is that it helped to resolve. While the commercial airlines were not operating, it helped to financially sustain the payment of salaries, basic services, electricity, and water, with the operation of the migrants.
When the migrants left the airport, cab drivers or private buses or cars were waiting for them. They got a code, knew which cab to take, and were then taken to the northern border of Nicaragua with Honduras. So this also helped to boost the economy of the cab cooperatives that depended on the operation of transporting migrants from the airport to the border with Honduras. Likewise, it also boosted the sales centers inside the airport that sold refreshments, food, and the sale of Claro and Tigo SIM cards that migrants bought.
“It's a mafia, like a Netflix movie”
Does the company Easy Aviation, which acts as the main intermediary for the organization of these charter flights with the airport services, have any relationship with Laureano Ortega or Rafael Ortega, who are the sons of the presidential couple delegated to control the International Airport?
Among us and in the corridors of the airport, it was said that Geovanny (Jaen) was an operator or a frontman of Laureano (Ortega) and Rafael or "Payo" Ortega. Both Geovanny (Jaen) and the manager of Conviasa, boasted that they met and received gifts, that they sat at the same table with the two of them.
Is this relationship not present in the board of directors of the International Airport?
Never. The problem, as seen in all institutions and all cases of corruption, is that everything is the same. The Airport Administration Company, which is an institution, a state-owned company in Nicaragua, along with their [the regime’s] personal businesses, all merge into a single enterprise.
You stopped working at the International Airport in 2023. Why?
All the workers at the middle and lower levels were going through a time of discomfort with the management, except for the directors and area managers who received a good salary and good benefits, at middle and lower levels within the staff. Most of us felt trampled on, as we were not paid for airport holidays, even if we worked them, overtime was not paid.
Several colleagues in the ramp, mainly, in the flight dispatch and operations area began to resign. Last year there was a high level of worker resignations. Some were leaving for the United States, or moving to other commercial airlines that were already operating again. And in that context, I left the company.
Is there political surveillance at the International Airport, as there is in other public institutions?
Of course, there is political surveillance. In all institutions, all over the country, there is political surveillance. It is even greater at the airport because it is an important point of entry and exit for national and foreign passengers, where several institutions converge. Migration converges, the National Police converges, and even the Army converges through the DID (Directorate of Information for the Defense).
And what is your motivation now to give this interview and make this denunciation?
This is a mafia. You only see this in Netflix or Hollywood movies. They use institutions that are supposed to be serious to carry out something illegal, such as the transport of migrants who come in a non-regular situation.
Do you think it is possible to know the whole truth of this great operation?
It could be known by inviting the international authorities to the UN Office for Migration, as well as the authorities of the United States. Because the financial origin of the operation is Easy Aviation, the company in charge of managing the charter flights, is based in Miami, Florida. So from ther, we could easily check the financial statements, the movements of money, the movements of the deposits made to the different airlines and the origin of that money as well.
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
