A No-Show Epidemic in Distortiolandia
So puzzle me this one: how can it be possible that international flights out of Maiquetía are booked solid for now until the end of time, yet all kinds of flights leave more than half full!?
The answer’s after the jump. You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The answer, of course, is the giant state sponsor rent-seeking orgy/scam known as CADIVI/SICAD, a handy revolutionary mechanism that shoves wads of free cash into middle class pockets so long as you jump through the series of insane hoops they want you to jump through.
In this case, in order to approve cheap travel dollars, you have to show you’ve bought an actual plane ticket. But what’s important isn’t that you get on that plane, but that your credit card does!
What’s insane is that CADIVI/SICAD is such a manguangua that the No Show Scam is profitable even after you deduct the cost of the plane tickets. (Of course, whether the psychic damage of going through the carpeta rigamarole is worth it is another question altogether.)
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