stheller

What a nightmare for AA! They should just stop flying to Venezuela until this blows over; half a billion $ is a lot of money to have at serious risk like this.

MyTravels

AA owns CCS, there aren't a lot of opportunity to own the a major foreign airport (no major local airline).

Is there risk to keep flying, absolutely, but AA (and other airlines) seem to be taking a long-term view (for now). There is long-term risk trade-off to pulling out. If you pull out you will definite lose your dominant position and you still have to do something with the currently booked passengers.

To have an idea how hard it is to even create a foothold, prior to the CO merger UA tried to get rights to fly to CCS from DC and never received permission.

I would think it is more likely that AA reduces frequency depending on if that has lower long-term repercussions. (UA, DL, CA, AF, and many others fly once a day or less so they have less reduction options)

cmhua777

My company has a large presence in Venezuela and we are taking a long-term view on the country. I am sure the airlines, especially AA, are doing the same. As the poster above mentioned, frequencies are controlled and I doubt the airlines want to run the risk of giving them up for fear they will never get them back. And I can't blame them given the recent events of this week where the government cracked down on private companies selling white-goods for "unfair" prices.

Keep in mind that AA is likely booking this revenue at the official rate and then taking a write down closer to the auction rates that the government has run (official is 6.3 BsF:USD while the last auction to repatriate was around 15:1). This is still a lot better than the 'parallel' rate. It is widely expected that there will be another devaluation after Christmas, which the airlines are clearly hedging against by not opening up seats deep into 2014 to avoid pre-booking.

As for current loads, my anecdotal experience has been they are >90% full. My last four recent flights have been packed.

Dieuwer

Venezuelan Foreign Exchange reserves are standing at approximately $21 billion right now: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/vene...hange-reserves
No payment problems yet, just delays.

tom911

http://www.curacaochronicle.com/avia...-in-venezuela/

Dont call me Shirley

http://www.curacaochronicle.com/avia...-in-venezuela/

CARACAS – The U.S. airline American Airlines, the largest international carrier operating to Venezuela, announced that they have stopped selling tickets from and to Venezuela in any currency.

More background here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...s-bolivar.html

Tickets from American Airlines (AAL) Inc., Grupo Aeromexico SAB and Avianca Holdings SA (AVH) among others have become harder to buy in Venezuela since September, as tighter currency controls make it more difficult for companies to convert bolivars into dollars. The shortage of greenbacks to fund imports of goods and services led the bolivar to decline 73 percent this year in the black market.

So far it seems there is no impact on flights...

kpowed

So if you fly there, make sure you have a ticket to come back!

Viajero Millero

This is not accurate at all. Bloomberg did that piece and neglected to fact-check accordingly.

And you guys saw me complaining in this thread before.

AA has had a pattern when they only sell tickets a couple of days per week and the rest of the week the availability is zeroed out. The original Bloomberg article came out Tuesday AM (showing zero availability) and by Wednesday PM there was plenty space available at reasonable prices. In fact, I was able to book two RTs over the course of Thursday and Friday, paying with BsF.

This is the same pattern AA had showed the last 2-3 weeks before and something I warned one of the writers of the story via Twitter. They disregarded my warning as well as comments from an AA spokeperson (whom to be honest, had trouble wording the right reply).

Some more comments on Twitter at @Viajeromillero and reporter @jammastergirish.

btwayland

If anyone is having a hard time finding flights to Venezuela on AA.com, I suggest trying google.com/flights/ (and presumably ITA would work as well, though I haven't tried it). Although I'm not planning to travel there, I have kept a watch on flights to there because I have a friend who lives there that I may plan to visit in the near future.

For some reason, I can never get AA.com to show me any flights there at all. When I search on google, it finds the flights and ultimately ends up with an itinerary that I can click on that takes me directly to the AA.com site to finalize purchase. From this point, I can then click on the "Find Flights" tab, and see all of the options, or just use the dates to search again, since I know they are dates they have flights scheduled.

vtrombetta

Venezuela has strong control on currency exchange. The government owes 400 million $ so AA reduced capacity. It gets released 3 weeks before each flight and double pricing is used (6.5k USD if ticket is emitted in VEB, 1.2K if its emitted any other currency)

so there you go. everything is seen clearly now