Rutaca sure has come a long way since my youth in the 1970s / 1980s! Thanks for sharing this; seeing CCS / Maiquetía again sure brought back *a lot* of memories!!
Great Post! That you ventured into a really dangerous place to give us this review makes your efforts meaningful and well appreciated by those of us who so comfortably watch these goings on with armchair access. I will never forget the Cubre Libre drink I enjoyed on a Viasa DC10 from Miami decades ago... and even way back then... Venezuela was an adventure!
Viasa was a whole different thing, it was sold and dismantled completely in the 90ies. A decade later a now deceased president wanted to have a State airline again, and made Conviasa from scratch but its not even a shadow of what Viasa used to have. Honestly, i think Rutaca its pretty much ok, Venezolana is scary and i used to flight with them because it was the cheapest way to go from CCS to POS and back... They would always put their round sticker in the back of your passport so its impossible to forget.
I flew onboard the Boeing 737-300 Classic 3 times in my life. In fact, the 737-300 is the first aircraft that i've flown on my first ever flying onboard an airplane i think 16 years ago. Truely a classic airliner👍
Very interesting situation in Maracaibo with jetbridges. Looks like they are very outdated and in a bad condition to the point when they are not operational anymore?
6:38 You said a little commun mistake; that's not the view of Caracas. That's the view of Maiquetia City, which belongs to Vargas State. Maiquetia Airport serves Caracas DC as its principal airport.
I've flown Maracaibo a few times. Small airport, not too much to see. That being said I loved your video, I saw a Rutaca a few days ago when I was flying from Barquisimeto to Panama, the livery is gorgeous
None of the airports in Venezuela is "big", the "biggest" one is that one in CCS, just couple of runways parallel to the terminal, an old design from many decades ago. Even the Concorde landed there in the 70ies, back when Venezuela was much more wealthy...
Ese aeropuerto está deteriorado y las mangas de abordaje oxidadas. Increíble que una ciudad como Maracaibo con su importancia regional, tenga un aeropuerto en ese estado, el cual en los años 90's era modelo de arquitectura y desarrollo.
A few years back, Venezolana's 2 planes were doing Caracas (Simon Bolivar) Port of Spain (Piarco), i did that route a few times. As you may know, they have an MD-80 and 737-200, that Boeing is straight from the 80ies... In the last flight there was a weird high pitch noise in the cabin during the entire flight. As far as i know, currently Venezolana is mostly doing Caracas - Santo Domingo. I'm honestly surprised you learned about that minuscule airline, unless you somehow learned about their web site venezolana dot aero. That MD-80 punches you to your seat during take off, or the pilot loves to show off, which might not be necessarily safe. Last time he didn't bother centering and throttle down when entering the runway, we went from zero in the taxiway into the runway at full throttle already that was very unnerving, tho i guess the chance of asymmetric thrust due to sudden failure of one of those tail engines wouldn't affect as much. If you want to know, that flight takes about 1 hour, roughly the same as going to Maracaibo, very rarely you could even get some snack inflight. The ticket used to be about 200 USD in 2018 or so.
Great flight. First thing came in my mind about this country is Copa America 2007, and one venue I remembered is Maracaibo. Unfortunately you got flight replacement many times in this country, one of the reason is few passengers.
@@bahaviation2070 Simon doesn’t tend to visit South America or fly on smaller airlines and David has been doing voice overs in all of his videos lately
On Friday evenin' there is a Conviasa flight that goes from Caracas to Porlamar on the A340-200, it is a domestic and a regular flight with that aircraft, I invite you to take it one day and document it for the channel, greetings
Great video, Not many videos from Aviation in Venezuela lately. I always wondered how they get parts for those planes as the country is sanctioned. It is more expensive to operate those flights below capacity. I prefer the E190 than the A340 lol Cheers
These airlines aren't under sanctions, so parts are available if they can earn enough. As you notice occupancy is low. No idea how they manage to survive.
Old Boeing 737 parts are the most easy to find in the world. Venezuelan fleet is usually old but there has not been an acccident due to mainteinance in decades. Plane tickets are expensive, that route one way costs at least 80$-90$ for a 1 hour trip. Fuel is the only thing subsidized for private airlines
State airline is subsidized, private ones only get cheap fuel. Tickets are expensive for the lenght and the old plane it is. However planes are all owned, not leased.
Super smooth landing from the looks of it. Just a personal opinion, i would've preferred a bit more than just the subtitles as it would probably give a slightly better and more personalized touch to your amazing content..😊 peace from 🇮🇳 safe travels..
It needs a lot of faith in the maintenance programs of these obscure airlines with elderly equipment, particularly ones in countries that, for political reasons, may not find it easy to obtain spare parts
