The government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo dealt a severe blow to travel agencies in Nicaragua by closing some of them, including 1,500 NGOs, the largest since 2018 when the regime’s hunt against civil associations began.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an organization that brings together the world’s airlines and agencies, was canceled last Monday and with it, the blocking of bank accounts and therefore the Billing and Settlement Program known as BPS (acronym in English), which collects 83% of the income from ticket purchases from airlines in Nicaragua, was carried out.
“The clearing bank has notified IATA that, as a result of Ministerial Agreement No. 38 of the Ministry of the Interior published in La Gaceta on Monday, August 19, 2024, our bank accounts have been frozen. We are working with our legal advisors to ensure the continuity of the program’s operations in Nicaragua,” the owner of a travel agency told journalist Miguel Mendoza.
The association no longer had a physical presence in Nicaragua, but served as a mediator for 12 agencies that work with IATA and that are paralyzed, which also causes unbalance for the airlines. The rest of the small agencies or tour operators that are not affiliated with IATA are also in a state of anxiety because they fear that the government will also take action against them.
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“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sell tickets tomorrow, the situation is difficult. If all the companies close the possibility of issuing tickets, the only option left will be to buy directly from the airlines and that will complicate everything. The problem will be that if you, for example, go to a place where you have to make a connection with another airline, you are in Portugal and you want to go to Turkey, the agency will not be able to sell you the full ticket because you have to take two companies,” explained an affected businessman to Mendoza.
Faced with a blockage in ticket sales, Copa Airlines decided to close ticket sales points to agencies and rely solely on ticket purchases through its website, a mechanism that Avianca also adopted last Thursday.
In the statement, the airlines report that they will also accept payments by credit card and will waive the tax that travel agencies apply to tickets. Another alternative method is for the affected agencies to buy the tickets from their clients and pay the airlines in cash; however, this would complicate the purchase process.
Related news: Nicaraguan dictatorship decapitates 1,500 NGOs with a single blow
Why did the IATA closure happen?
It is still unclear why the regime included the transnational, which works in the airline industry where 330 airlines from 120 countries are affiliated, in the group of NGOs that were decapitated; however, some experts believe that it is a mistake and others think that it is a silent strategy of the regime.
“We assume that it was due to confusion, as they saw that it was an association and thought it was an NGO with national operations, ignoring that it was a central axis in the global machinery of the airline industry. This error could lead to the closure of many travel agencies and therefore thousands of direct jobs will be lost,” a source told Mendoza.
The closure of IATA coincides with the ban imposed by the Sandinista government on its institutions from buying airline tickets from state agencies and ordered direct online purchases, in addition to the fact that said purchase must be authorized directly by the Presidency, which represented a million-dollar loss for the agencies, since in 2024 alone more than 72 million córdobas were budgeted for travel.
Among the Nicaraguan agencies with IATA certification are Aeromundo, Viajes Atlántida, Viajes América, Viajes Premier, Mango Travel, Viajes Munditur, El Viajero, Viajes Tisey, SchuVar Tours, Vice Travel and Sky Travel. The Ortega regime has not yet commented on the closure of said transnational association.
