(Bloomberg) — It’s getting harder, and more expensive, to find a flight out of Venezuela.
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President Nicolas Maduro has canceled flights to several countries that have cast doubt on his self-declared election victory, including two that are normally major hubs for travelers entering or leaving Venezuela: Panama, the hub of Copa Airlines, and the Dominican Republic. Peru is also now off-limits.
The only remaining option for a regional flight out of the country is Bogota, but prices have skyrocketed. A flight from Caracas to the Colombian capital in two weeks, which takes about two hours, used to cost less than $200, but on Friday it cost more than $800.
The lack of options has left Venezuelans living abroad who returned to vote on July 28 stranded. Many had hoped they could engineer a change in leadership that would transform the country and allow them to return permanently. Now, some say they are desperate to leave and fear they will be trapped.
Eugenia, 27, traveled to Caracas from Panama, where she lives with her husband and their 3-month-old son, to vote and take the chance to be with family and have the baby baptized. But now they have no return flight. The baptism was also canceled after protests broke out and Maduro’s security forces cracked down on dissidents.
Eugenia, who did not want to publish her last name to avoid government reprisals, knew it would not be easy to leave Venezuela. The day after the election, protests began, with demonstrators blocking the main road to the capital’s airport.
She said the return trip to Panama via Colombia will now cost as much as $1,500 per ticket, compared to the $330 they originally paid for a round-trip ticket.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “We fear food shortages and there are rumors that there could be another national blackout,” similar to a 2019 power outage that grounded flights amid political unrest.
More than 1,200 protesters have been arrested after the election and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has gone into hiding as she calls for demonstrations across Venezuela on Saturday to defend what her party sees as its election victory. Maduro’s government has not yet released detailed voting data, despite calls from other countries, including allies Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, and pro-democracy advocates. The US has said candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, a close ally of Machado, has won the election.
On Friday, Venezuela’s electoral authority certified Maduro’s victory and the Supreme Court began hearings on the results, with the Venezuelan government attempting to use regime-controlled institutions to legitimize its position.
The canceled flights are part of a broader 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
Caracas International Airport was packed this week as passengers to Panama and the Dominican Republic tried to book the last available flights or find new routes to their destinations.
On Wednesday, Latam Airlines had to cram as many passengers as possible onto flights to Bogota. While Colombia has not yet been removed from the list, President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday voiced his own concerns about Maduro’s election victory, urging Venezuelan authorities to allow a verifiable vote count and international oversight.
At least 50% of Venezuela’s 187 weekly international flights have been canceled after Maduro decided to halt flights to Panama, the Dominican Republic and Peru, an insider said.
Maduro’s decision will affect about 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 to the rest of the world.
“If they close, they will definitely affect everything, because Bogota and Medellin, which are also very used, will become saturated,” she said. “We want to urge the government to think about the consequences of such a decision, we run the risk of falling back into the trap.”
Like Eugenia, Eduardo Perera, 35, traveled to Venezuela with his wife and son to vote and were unable to use their return tickets on Copa Airlines. Although they had to postpone their return trip, they managed to get a ticket “at a relatively good price” to fly to Colombia in a few weeks and then on to Panama, where they live.
Diminishing options
Perera had not voted in Venezuela since he left 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 hold on to power despite the fact that people told them they don’t want them,” Perera said. “They know that religion and terror are antagonistic, and terror is gaining ground.”
Besides Bogota, regional flight options for Venezuelans have dwindled to non-daily flights to Mexico and some Caribbean islands, such as Curacao or Trinidad and Tobago. The furthest and most expensive options are Spain and Turkey. It is unlikely that those routes will be able to fully absorb the eventual diversion of passengers if the route to Bogota is also closed.
Perera says he is not upset about waiting for his flight later this month, as he has his own business and his job is not in jeopardy. But Maduro’s grip on power has discouraged him.
“My biggest fear now is that I don’t get stranded in Venezuela,” he said. “My biggest fear is that we lose this huge opportunity to get the country back. We all want to go back.”
–With assistance from Nicolle Yapur.
(Updates with the Venezuelan Electoral Council certifying Maduro’s victory in the 10th paragraph.)
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