Is Venezuela Turning into an Island?

Now, exactly two years after my arrival, if I want to buy a ticket to travel to Cuba, I have to do it several months in advance (in June or July, for instance) – not to get a cheaper ticket, but to get one at all. Conviasa, the Venezuelan State airline company, offers very “affordable” fares for flights to Havana: over 12 thousand Bolivars, three times what it was two years ago, that is. This is about a thousand dollars, under the prices set by SICAD (another entity that sells hard currencies). Let us suppose I am not interested in traveling to Cuba (as could be the case with any Venezuelan). If we wanted to travel to Spain, the ticket – which we would need to buy now for traveling in July or September – costs between 45 and 54 thousand Bolivars. And that’s if you fly with Conviasa, the airline company supposed to be the cheapest, the government company.More...