Truckers’ strike tripled ticket prices and searches increased by 6,000%

Last week’s transport strike forced Colombian travellers to look for more last-minute plane tickets to reach their commitments in other cities in the country amidst chaos on the roads. This situation led to an increase in demand and, in turn, to ticket prices going up in just a matter of hours.

In this way, the tourism portal Viajala carried out an analysis on the impact on the sector, in which it concluded that The situation increased searches by more than 6,000%and people bought their flights at more than three times their value than on a regular day.

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“We see extreme increases in searches on routes such as Bogotá – Paipa or Bogotá – Villavicencio, which are usually within bus distance,” said Romain Maciejewski, commercial director of the flight search engine Viajala.com.co.

In addition to the impacts left on the tourism sector, with daily losses of $86 billion, according to estimates by the Colombian Hotel and Tourism Association (Cotelco), It is possible to say that there was also a very hard impact on the budget of the Colombian traveler.

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“In areas that are very vulnerable to unemployment, where the road infrastructure is very weak (typically there is only one access road to the destination) is where we were able to observe the strongest increases in demand for flights,” Maciejewski explained. “For example, there is only one road connecting Villavicencio to Bogotá and with a blockade like this the only option to go on a trip or return home is by plane, which is much more expensive at the last minute.”

In this way, Viajala analyzed the demand for flights between August 26 and 27, Monday and Tuesday, when the roads were open, and September 2 and 3, Monday and Tuesday of the following week, during the crisis of the cargo transporters’ strike, and observed an increase of more than 6,000% in searches from Paipa to Bogotá, and almost 1,000% increase in searches from Villavicencio to the capital of Colombia.

“For the Colombian traveler, this change of plans meant not only a great inconvenience but also very high expenses, since last-minute plane tickets can cost more than double the average price of a ticket purchased in advance,” the manager added.

In the case of the Villavicencio – Bogotá route, The average price of a round-trip trip searched a month in advance is around $200,000. But, bought at the last minute, in the last three days before the travel date, The price can vary between $472,000 and $622,000according to data from Viajala.

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Comparison in searches of other routes

• Paipa – Bogotá had 6,125% more searches between September 2 and 3, compared to August 26 and 27, in the previous week
• Villavicencio – Bogotá had 962% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Paipa – Medellín, had 678% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Bogotá – Villavicencio had 481% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Pereira – Medellín, had 400% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Bogotá – Yopal had 131% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Cúcuta – Medellín, had 128% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Pereira – Bogotá, had 95% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Medellín – Apartadó had 88% more searches between September 2 and 3
• Medellín – Quibdó, had 85% more searches between September 2 and 3

Paula Galeano Balaguera
Portfolio Journalist