Venezuela election dispute traps travellers trying to leave country

By Alex Vasquez

It’s getting harder and harder, and much more expensive, to find a flight out of Venezuela.
 

President Nicolas Maduro has canceled flights to some countries that questioned his self-declared election victory, including two that in normal times are major hubs for travelers heading into or out of Venezuela: Panama, the hub of carrier Copa Airlines, and the Dominican Republic. Peru is also off-limits now.

The one option remaining for a regional flight out of the country is to Bogota, but prices have skyrocketed. A flight two weeks from now from Caracas to the Colombian capital, which takes about two hours, used to cost less than $200, but it was priced at more than $800 as of Friday. 

The lack of options is stranding Venezuelans who live abroad but returned to vote in the July 28 election. Many had hoped they could usher in a change in leadership that would reshape the country and enable them to return permanently. Now, some say they are desperate to leave and afraid they may be trapped.

Eugenia, 27, traveled to Caracas from Panama, where she lives with her husband and their three-month-old son, to vote and take the opportunity of being with family to baptize the baby. But now they don’t have a return flight. The baptism was canceled as well, after protests erupted and Maduro’s security agents cracked down on dissenters. 

Eugenia, who asked not to publish her last name to avoid government reprisals, knew that leaving Venezuela wasn’t going to be easy as soon as protests began the day after the election and demonstrators blocked the main highway leading to the capital’s airport. 

She said returning to Panama via Colombia will now cost as much as $1,500 a ticket, compared with the $330 they paid for each round trip ticket originally. 

“We don’t know what is going to happen,” she said. “We fear food shortages and there are rumors that there may be a new national blackout” similar to a 2019 power outage that grounded flights amid political turmoil. 

More than 1,200 protesters have been arrested after the election and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has gone into hiding, while calling for demonstrations across Venezuela on Saturday to defend what her party sees as their election victory.

Maduro’s government has yet to release granular data on the vote despite calls from other countries, including allies Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, and democracy advocates. The US has said that candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, a close Machado ally, won the election.

On Friday, Venezuela’s electoral authority ratified Maduro’s victory and its top court began hearings into the result, as his government sought to use regime-controlled institutions to legitimize its position.  

The canceled flights are part of a wider regional diplomatic dispute over the election results. Panama has withdrawn its diplomats from the country, as has Chile, whose president called Venezuela’s official vote count “hard to believe.”

Packed flights

The international airport that serves Caracas was packed this week as passengers to Panama and the Dominican Republic tried to get on the last available flights or find new routes to their destination. 

On Wednesday, Latam Airlines had to cram as many passengers as it could on to flights to Bogota. Although Colombia hasn’t been crossed off the list yet, its president, Gustavo Petro, weighed in on Wednesday with his own concerns about Maduro’s election win, urging Venezuelan authorities to allow for a verifiable vote count and international oversight.

At least 50 per cent of Venezuela’s 187 international weekly flights have been canceled after Maduro’s decision to stop flights to Panama, Dominican Republic and Peru, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

Maduro’s decision will affect some 10,000 passengers a week, said Dora Rios, president of the Venezuelan association of tourism representatives. She said the Dominican Republic and Panama are generally used as a bridge to connect with the rest of the world. 

“When closed, they affect absolutely everything because Bogota and Medellin, which are widely used too, are going to get saturated,” she said. “We want to urge the government to think of the consequences of a decision of this kind, we are risking being trapped again.”

Like Eugenia, Eduardo Perera, 35, traveled to Venezuela with his wife and son to vote and weren’t able to use their return tickets with Copa Airlines. Although they had to postpone their return, they managed to get a ticket “at a relatively good price” to fly to Colombia in a couple weeks, and then to Panama, where they live. 

Dwindling options

Perera hadn’t voted in Venezuela since leaving the country 10 years ago, although he had visited several times. But he felt compelled to return for this election, believing that a change of government was possible — only to be disappointed by the outcome.

“This is a dictatorship; they want to maintain power despite the fact that people told them that they don’t want them,” Perera said. “They know that faith and terror are antagonistic, and terror is gaining ground.”

Besides Bogota, Venezuelans’ regional flight options have dwindled to nondaily flights to Mexico and some Caribbean islands, such as Curacao or Trinidad and Tobago. The furthest and most expensive options are Spain and Turkey. Those routes would be unlikely to fully absorb the eventual diversion of passengers if the Bogota route is also closed.

Perera says he isn’t distressed waiting for his flight later this month, since he owns his own business and thus his job isn’t in danger. But Maduro’s grip on power has left him dismayed.

“My biggest fear now is not being stranded in Venezuela,” he said. “My biggest fear is that we lose this gigantic opportunity to recover the country. We all want to return.”