No one can deny that the socialist country of Venezuela is in turmoil with food shortages and public unrest. United Airlines recently announced they would be canceling their daily service between Caracas and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

While the flight is popular with Texas-based oil executives and Venezuelans living in the United States, few tourists travel to the crisis-stricken country and flights often have low occupancy.

“In every market we serve, we continually review demand for service and because our Houston-Caracas service is not meeting our financial expectations we have decided to suspend it, effective July 1,” United spokesman Charles Hobart said in an email to Reuters.

United in April added a one-hour stop in the Caribbean island of Aruba to its Houston-to-Caracas leg, a move analysts said was to ensure crews would not have to stay overnight in Venezuela. – Reuters

Many airlines have stopped their service to Venezuela in recent years citing safety concerns and charging that Venezuela is not making payments that are owed by the government to the airline companies for ticket sales.

Featured image by REUTERS/Louis Nastro/File Photo