Flying Venezuela's BIZARRE State Airline with CRAZY Routes: Conviasa

Love this! An empty, dodgy airplane to an empty, new airport. Noel is going places!!

booking a flight through a guy on whatsapp? I would've simply given up lmao you are far braver than me

Hi Noel, Conviasa recientemente hace menos de un mes, agrego una nueva ruta para China, no recuerdo que ciudad, es la ruta mas larga que tiene la aerolinea y creo que es una de las mas largas del mundo actualmente, los mostradores cierran 2 horas antes porque los equipajes que viajan se someten a muchos chequeos por la guardia nacional, y las operaciones en tierra son mas lentas debido a que en buena parte las bodegas de carga se revisan muchas veces para estibar e incluso para aperturar los compartimentos, se requiere autorizacion previa de los tenientes. Eso sin mencionar que los camiones de combustible para suministrar son algo lentos, 17 litros por segundo y en ocaciones fallan y suministran de a ratos mucho menos que eso, y en este aeropuerto en particular, se tiene que llamar y esperar a los bomberos para poder abordar mientras se suministra el combustible de forma obligatoria. Esa aerolinea opera tambien el Airbus A340-200 (el unico en el mundo hasta donde yo se). Trabajo en ese aeropuerto pero en otra empresa, te veo desde hace mucho tiempo.

A video from Conviasa, the government owned carrier from Venezuela on Venezuela's election day, good timing

Conviasa are only missing Pyongyang and Beijing on their list of destinations : )

I remember back in the day having to book a flight from Tanzania to Uganda and having to do it through a travel agent and pay cash. Also booking a domestic flight in Indonesia having to pay at a local convenience store

The a340-600s in their fleet all once were Virgin Atlantic, so I’m guessing they’ve left the bar in from the red tail days

The Caracas-Damascus flight has to be the most unusual. Venezuelan and Syrian passport holders need full visas for each other and the Syrian visa can only be collected at the land border. I'm not sure who could even fly this route outside of diplomatic officials. I know the route is only there as a political gesture, but using an extremely non fuel efficient A340 with no passengers across the world seems like a massive money burner for a country that has its own economic struggles.

You're a brave soul, Noel! Being as big an avgeek as you are (well, nearly, I don't have an aviation YT channel. Yet.) I found it most interesting that while the A340 uses all four engines for reverse thrust on landing to assist the brakes, the much more massive A380 only uses the 2 inboard engines. Anyway, another fun video, glad you're home safe (given the state of Venezuela's economy, I'd have worried a bit about aircraft maintenance but clearly that wasn't a problem), see you in the next one!

That new airport is not in Mexico City, it's actually located a solid two hour drive from it....and there's no special road no Heathrow Express sort of train so good luck navigating the traffic in and out of Mexico City. Story of the airport is as follows: Mexico's president, Lopez Obrador, decided to do away with the expansion already underway at Mexico City's airport where 1 billion US dollars had already been invested. He claimed dodgy business dealings had taken place (I'm sure of it) hence his response was to start off from scratch at this new location using a military existing base for it. He, following Cuba's and Venezuela's lead, charged the military with building this airport. He has also invited the military to build the so called Mayan train (also running rather empty with stations far from city centres, challenging booking procedures and limits on baggage which make it rather complicated for international visitors to use). Back on the story, the military has also built the new airport in Tulum and will lo be operating hotels along the Mayan train route. It appears Mexico's army general went to business school before enrolling and took courses on good governance practices......... Anyhow, back to the story. The new airport was pitched to the major carriers for scheduled commercial services which they politely declined. They said it didn't make business sense for them to do so (it appears Lopez Obrador acted on a whim in lieu of gathering feedback from industry experts before he decided to throw 1 billion dollars down the drain). The reaction by Mexico's president was to force carriers to divert all cargo flights to it..... He also needed to show Mexicans how his vision for the airport was coming to fruition so he caed his buddies in Havana and Caracas to ask for flights which they were happy to oblige. And this is the only reason Conviasa flies into Santa Lucia and why Aeromexico was the carrier to bring Noel back home and not, say, United. Mexican carriers were also "invited" to show some love for this gigantic money losing proposition. Last but not the least, Lopez Obrador decided to resurrect Mexicana Airlines, give it to the military to operate and bulge the number of passengers using that airport. Mexican taxpayers are going to be covering the huge deficits resulting from all these projects for a generation of two.

The curse of the SSSS. I book almost all my international travel on points and one way, so I get hit with this frequently. The worst is it's usually just one member of our group who gets tagged, but the whole party is delayed. And like you point out, it's not super clandestine and pretty quick to figure out what's going on, so if you were trying to pull something dangerous... Anyway, your call-out is its silliness made me smile.

Hi Noel – my name is Louise and I suffer with advanced secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and lupus. I’m also partially sighted ~ I either bedbound or wheelchair bound. I live in a rehabilitation centre. ~ I absolutely love your channel and the content you give – some of the places you go to I can only ever dream about but thanks to you I can see some of them – Your channel always make me smile – I haven’t watched your Vlog/video yet. I just thought I’d come and say hello– thank you so much for all your hard work in putting and sharing these vlogs/videos ~ I hope you have a great week ~ sending love and hugs Xxx Xxx

Hi Noel... you forgot to mention that Conviassa fly to my home St. Vincent & the Grenadines... You will also note that not only Conviassa but Virgin, Caribbean airlines Jet 2 Air Canada rouge et al also come here so even though we had a bad battering from Beryl do pay us a visit... its a very beautiful place and your family would love it.

Haha, they just need Pyongyang also, then it's a full plate.

Than you Nole for visiting my country glad you liked it. Venezuela Libre🟡🔵🔴🙌

You are so lucky that you ended up on an A340-600. Great Video!

I flew to Caracas last year with my wife (who is Venezuelan) and child. There is another airline called Plus-Ultra which flies directly from Tenerife (where I live) and its pretty decent all things considered. Strangely enough, I also flew out of Venezuela and went to Mexico, but headed into Cancun for a holiday. Most international routes are basically into Panama and then separate connections from there. You can book the plus-ultra flights online - pretty standard. But we booked the flights to Mexico whilst in Venezuela and used a good travel agent - went to her office, figured everything out, paid and had everything printed off. Given what they have been through, the past 20 years, the travel agents must be a very hardy bunch! Caracas was very dangerous but it has bee improving for over a decade and is a lot safer now. You can now use US dollars everwhere as well which makes life much easier.

I was in Venezuela before the current government came in. The price of a container of milk was 28 Bolivars. I found out that a day laborer makes 28 Bolivars a day.....

It's been a long time since I left Venezuela for good. We are having Presidential elections this week and hoping for a new government. Venezuela is beautiful as are its people. I miss it dearly 😢. Never have flown Conviasa even though I flew often when I lived there. This video brought lots of memories as well as a reality that I know Venezuelans are experiencing. Most of the people Noel encountered are young enough to have never experienced any other form of government than what they live in now so to them it's all normal and have grown accustomed to the tyranny of the government. Thank you Noel for this video. I am looking forward to returning someday and walking myself through those international terminal halls.

@22:40 The camera angle was hilarious 😂 I saw that you were picking your bag up but for a minute it looked like you were judging that guy