Earlier, I covered how the airspace of El Paso Airport (ELP) was suddenly closed for 10 days, with the explanation being that it’s due to “special security reasons.”
Just closing the airspace around a commercial US airport for 10 days with little advance notice is pretty unprecedented, so understandably, many people wondered what was going on. Well, there’s an update — this flight restriction has already been rescinded, and we have more of a sense of why this might’ve been implemented.
However, there may be a little more nuance to this. The Texas Tribune quotes an industry official who was briefed by the FAA, claiming that the military has been operating drones against drug cartel operations from a base near El Paso, without sharing information about those plans with the FAA. So the idea is that the FAA was unable to predict where the military drones were operating, as they were outside the normal flight paths, and therefore had no choice but to close down the airspace.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
