Margarita island and Venezuela, travel, information

Buenas tardes desde Barcelona - España,Soy empleado de American Express Viajes y juntamente con mi mujer que trabaja para Lufthansa en el aeropuerto de Barcelona estamos organizando un viaje a Isla Margarita.

Venezuela has a new airline for domestic flights: La Venezolana. It offers flights from Porlamar (Margarita Island) to Caracas and also offers other destinations: Maturín, Cumaná, Maracaibo, Santa Bárbara, El Vigía, and Aruba.

You will find more info on the official website of the airline http://www.venezolanaonline.com

Soon they will offer other destinations: Barcelona, Puerto Ordaz, Valera, Valencia and Bogotá, Curazao, Lima, Panamá, Santo Domingo, and Trinidad.

The airline is on time and has good air fares.

Once you arrive in Caracas, there are flights to almost all parts of the country. The airport in Caracas is called Simon Bolivar International Airport and it is located in Maiquetía, 40 minutes away from Caracas by car. Sometimes you will need to stay over night close to the airport, depending on the time of your arrival. The hotels close to the airport are dirty and expensive. We recommend the hotel Catimar http://www.hotelcatimar.com/
We have recently recommended it to some students that came to our Spanish school on Margarita Island and did not get any negative feedback. It is reasonable in price and clean and you can make the reservation by e-mail. We recommend to call the hotel in order to confirm that that reservation has been processed properly.

Regarding flights in Venezuela, you can book them by checking the websites of the Venezuelan airlines. At this time we do not recommend to fly with Aeropostal or Conviasa as their flights are often delayed by 3 hours or more.
Here you will find a list of Venezuelan airlines:

Laser Airlines: punctual and reliable
Avior Airlines: please confirm your return flight
Aserca Airlines: Same as Avior
Rutaca: little airline with several destinations

Santa Barbara Airlines: also offers flights to Spain, Portugal and Ecuador

Aerotuy: Canaima and Los Roques.

Conviasa: Try other choices first
Aeropostal:

There are several charter airlines that fly directly to Margarita Island International Airport Santiago Mariño.
Germany: Condor Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday
UK: First Choice every 15 days, Sunday
Netherlands: Arkefly, Wednesday
Czech Republic: Czech Airlines, Tuesday and Wednesday
Spain: Air Plus, Monday

There are also flights from Margarita Island to Trinidad and Grenada with the following Venezuelan airlines:

Conviasa, Trinidad and Grenada, daily
Avior, Trinidad, daily
Rutaca, Trinidad (new)

Most of this airlines offer online booking through their homepages - just click on the name of the airline and you will be directed to the main page.