Lufthansa to Suspend Flights to Venezuela Starting Next Month

[FrodosPet]

Source: Bloomberg

by Andrew Rosati - May 29, 2016 — 2:01 PM EDT

Deutsche Lufthansa AG will suspend flights to Venezuela next month “until further notice” as it struggles with the country’s currency controls and economic downturn.

The German airline operator will halt its three weekly flights between Frankfurt and Caracas, company spokesman Andreas Bartels said by telephone on Sunday. Bartels pointed to the challenge of repatriating revenues and a sharp dropoff in ticket demand -- especially among business travelers -- with the nation mired in its third year of a deep recession.

Lufthansa joins American Airlines Group Inc., which announced in March it was canceling its Caracas-to-New York route just three months after reinstating it, according to a Reuters report. International carriers have struggled for years to transfer back profits from Venezuela, leaving billions of dollars trapped in bolivars -- the local currency. In 2014, Lufthansa temporarily suspended ticket sales to Caracas, while flights for those already with tickets operated normally.

~ snip ~

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-29/lufthansa-to-suspend-flights-to-venezuela-starting-next-month

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Perhaps the Venezuelan government should expropriate or impound any funds and equipment owned by Lufthansa?

[christx30]

1. The airline should have grabbed everything

of theirs that wasn't nailed down before making their announcement.

Would have been better if Venezuela had been paying their bills.

[hack89]

2. Why would the government do that?

Lufthansa is doing nothing wrong.

[FrodosPet]

3. Because expropriating everything possible is the way to economic security?

That's what I keep reading over and over on the Latin America forum.

They cannot put it on the Internet if it isn't true!

[hack89]

4. Got it. Nt

[Iggo]

7. Bonjour!

[7962]

5. Surprised it took this long. The "revolution" continues to FAIL.

Just as most of us here knew it was doomed to do.

[Archae]

6. Just to be fair...

I will leave room for doubt here, and say that in the beginning, Chavez and Maduro didn't have malevolent intent.

But as their one-size-fits-all economy crashed due to the oil crunch and bad judgements from first Chavez and then Maduro, more and more draconian policies went into effect, including things we'd expect to see from a far-right banana republic like Stroessner's.

So now what?

[GulfCoast66]

8. It doesn't really matter

If your totally insane policies were not the result of ill intent. And if they result in your people starving.

In real life you get no points for good intentions. If you fuck up, you pay the price.

I am quite sure the worst oppressors in history were able to justify their actions to themselves. It's just human nature.

[Igel]

12. Doubt's fine.

But Chavez tried a coup before and it failed. He wanted power. His agenda came later.

At the beginning his rhetoric was sharply divisive, polemic, and drenched in class-warfare. Once you start that kind of polemic and your power base puts you in charge because of that rhetoric, it's awfully hard to walk it back. Even if you don't mean it.

At the same time, it's possible he assumed that the rightness of his way would become so obvious to so many so quickly that all would rise up and shout Hosanna! at the splendor of the Bolivarian revolution and the path he outlined. Perhaps he was a deluded as those who are convinced there was an easy way out based on a merger of nationalism and nationalization, the twin evils of the 1930s.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

9. Somewhere I'm sure

Doomsday preppers are getting hard-ons with every new calamity that befalls Venezuela.

[DetlefK]

10. This too is somehow the fault of the US.

Where are the Maduro-apologists when you need them?

A few days ago, I had an argument with an another DUer. He said, the US is behind Venezuela's problems. I asked him, which one of Venezuela's many problems he does specifically blame on the US. No answer.

[ButterflyBlood]

14. I remember aomeone blaming it on trade sanctions

Except there are none on Venezuela. And the US is still it's largest trade partner.

[GOLGO 13]

11. Who can blame Lufthansa? Other than news agencies who wants to go to Venezuela?

[Igel]

13. Must fine Lufthansa.

Think, billions of dollars in profits that are kept offshore.

[christx30]

15. The problem is that

Lufthansa isn't getting those profits. Venezuela doesn't have the US dollars to pay, and they are only getting paid in worthless bolivars.
Plus, no one wants to fly there anyway. Can't put butts in the seats. No reason to spend the money paying pilots, flight attendants, ground crews, ticket agents, buying fuel and spare parts when they aren't getting any of that money back.
And if the profits are kept offshore, then Maduro can't get his hands on them. As long as Lufthansa doesn't keep anything of value within the borders of Venezuela, it can't be stolen... excuse me... expropriated.