Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino) and the Venezuela government have reached an agreement in which the Venezuelans will pay off half their debt to the Italians in the form of fuel with the rest in state bonds (25%) and foreign currency (25%). The announcement follows days of talks between Alitalia and government which included the local civil aviation authority (Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil - INAC) and the state petroleum outfit, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). The deal is understood to have been tabled to all carriers affected by Venezuela's self inflicted foreign currency crunch. INAC's president, Pedro González Díaz, is quoted by El Universal as saying the government is to honor the debts through a mechanism that includes payment in foreign currency, debt bonds, and fuel though this is based on the amount payable up until December 31, 2013. Payments related to operations in 2014 are to start from scratch, said Mr González. So critical has the situation become that Air Europa (UX, Palma de Mallorca) Deputy Managing Director, José María Hoyos, was forced to fly out to Caracas to underscore the need for his airline's earnings to be repatriated in US Dollars. Bloomberg newswire says that with foreign carriers owed a total of USD3.3billion, the socialist government of Nicholas Maduro was on Wednesday, January 22, forced to reimburse airlines for ticket sales at the exchange rate used at weekly auctions, which last sold dollars at VEF11.36, compared with the official rate of VEF6.3.