Direct Route – Fort Lauderdale to Venezuela Reestablished After 10 Yrs
This news is really symbolic, all the walls between us and Latin America are finally coming down, even the biggest. We can start with Cuba, who we reestablished diplomatic relations with again after 50 years. That was the biggest wall and perhaps paved the way for this announcement of the reestablishment of a direct air route between Ft. Lauderdale and Venezuela. That had been on hiatus for 10 years, despite the amount of Venezuelans living in South Florida. This was due to a currency dispute, which is longstanding, where American companies cannot convert the Bolivar (Venezuelan currency) at the exchange rates they were promised by the government. When the international airlines pulled out after finally getting fed up with this currency game they were owed $3.7 billion dollars. Dynamic International Airways, a discount airline out of Greensboro, N.C., is relaunching the service now.
The price of a round trip ticket is just $599 and the flights are 4 times per week and started July 17th. They hope to be going daily shortly. The price will include a hot meal and 2 pieces of luggage. The planes will be 767-300 ERs which seat 242 passengers. Dynamic plans to add another route to Maracaibo later this year. While census only shows 85,000 Venezuelans living in South Florida, 511,000 of them visited in 2014. With these new direct flights that number is expected to double. People can’t leave there fast enough and this will make it easier for them to do so. Florida has greatly benefitted from all the economic difficulties in Latin America and continues to do so today.
Venezuela’s loss is definitely our gain, and the same can be said for Brazil, Puerto Rico, Honduras and Nicaragua. We have already mentioned Cuba. Thanks for opening up the flood gates even further Dynamic! As always thanks for reading and have a great day.
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