United Airlines Ends Venezuela Service
by Barbara Peterson
United Airlines said it will suspend service to Venezuela in July, becoming the latest major airline to decamp from the crisis-torn country.
The airline operates a daily flight between Houston and Caracas, but while that flight has a regular following among oil industry officials, travel to Venezuela has plummeted in recent years due to the implosion in its economy and the increasing isolation of its government.
For airlines the situation is complicated by ongoing disputes over currency exchange and their difficulty in getting paid in hard currency for sales made in the country; other airlines such as Lufthansa and Air Canada have dropped Venezuela off their routes maps for that very reason. United didn’t blame the currency spat for its decision, however.
“In every market we serve, we continually review demand for service and because our Houston-Caracas service is not meeting our financial expectations we have decided to suspend it,” a United spokesman told Reuters.
