Unlearning airline economics

Delta piles off(?) the Venezuelan routes;

Delta Air Lines Inc....said it would cut 85% of its flights to Venezuela next month, part of a broad cutback by foreign airlines that say the Venezuelan government owes them more than $4 billion.

Delta joins Air Canada,...Alitalia SpA, American Airlines Group Inc....and several other carriers that have eliminated or sharply reduced their flights to Venezuela in recent months amid a dispute with the Venezuelan government over their financial holdings in the country.

If American extends its schedule reduction to August, airlines would be scheduled to fly about 350 times from the U.S., Canada and Europe to Venezuela next month, down 66% from a year earlier, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of airline-schedule data.

No payee, no tickee.

The International Air Transport Association, a trade group, estimates that the Venezuelan government owes foreign airlines $4.1 billion, up from approximately $3.3 billion in April.

"The airlines for a number of months have been doing their best to get the money they have trapped there out," said IATA spokesman Jason Sinclair. "It's not a big surprise that it's difficult for airlines to operate there if they can't get paid."

You might think that obvious, but Venezuelan is ruled, by proxy, from Cuba. And Cuba is, in the words of Fidel Castro (according to Chilean diplomat Jorge Edwards) 'We may not be much good at production, but we really know about fighting.'

Venezuela is cruisin' for a bruisin', unless they unlearn their economics ideas...and soon.