Trapped in Venezuela: Looking to Get Out? Good Luck! Every day, the cost of a plane ticket out of Venezuela goes up. That assumes you can get a plane ticket, and you probably cannot, even if you booked three months ago. Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and Lufthansa cut the number of flights. Air Canada stopped all service. Economy class tickets to New York city cost as much as $3,000, if you can get them. And you probably cant. Instead, people take five-day rides to Lima, Peru as a means of escape. And that takes money as well. The result is best described as Trapped in Venezuela With the cash-strapped government holding back on releasing $3.8 billion in airline-ticket revenue because of strict currency controls, carriers have slashed service to Venezuela by half since January, adding another layer of frustration to daily life here. The lack of flights is complicating family vacations, business trips and the evacuation plans of Venezuelans who want to leave the country, which is whipsawed by 60% inflation, crime, food shortages and diminishing job prospects. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economics professor, says Venezuela tops his so-called misery index, which takes into account inflation, unemployment, economic stagnation and other factors in 89 countries. In Venezuela, you have the sensation that you cant leave, says Virginia Hernández, a Venezuelan who is studying orthodontics in Argentina. During a recent trip to see family in Caracas, she wound up marooned. The Venezuelan state-run carrier Conviasa had no plane available to fly its scheduled Caracas-to-Buenos Aires route, and other airlines servicing Argentina had sold out their flights. The Caracas polling company Datanalisis found that one in 10 citizens—most of them middle- and upper-class Venezuelans between 18 and 35—are seeking to leave the country, more than double the number who sought to abandon it in 2002, which was marked by an unsuccessful coup attempt against then President Hugo Chavez and a paralyzing oil strike. Read more at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot/2014/08/trapped-in-venezuela-looking-to-get-out.html#1mIDPMml0uRFhVSH.99
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 05:31:42 +0000
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