Most of the leading US carriers have already said publicly that they are interested in offering Cuba service as soon as they’re allowed to do so.
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Among the teachers at Wednesday’s baseball clinic were Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, St. Louis Cardinals catcher Brayan Pena and Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu – defectors who were once reviled by Cuban officials for abandoning the communist-run country but who have returned in triumph following last year’s historic detente between the Cold War foes.
A formal deal has yet to be reached, the officials said.
Until then air service between the two countries will continue via the existing system of charter flights.
Right now, American and Cuban travelers must fly on charter flights that are complicated to book, rarely involve an online portal and often force prospective travelers to email documents and payment information back and forth with an agent. A US official with knowledge of the talks said that negotiators from both countries were still working out technical details.
Vidal said the US president is welcome to visit Cuba, but said it would not negotiate its internal affairs in exchange for better diplomatic relations with Washington.
Obama told Yahoo News in an interview about the December 17 anniversary that he hopes to visit Cuba in 2016 but only if enough progress has been made in bilateral relations, he is able to meet with political dissidents, and if he can possibly “nudge the Cuban government in a new direction”. Several music promoters are jostling to hold the first major US pop concert in the capital early next year. Hotels and private hostals are booked for months. Vidal said much of the blame lay with the Obama administration’s unwillingness, so far, to take bolder steps to loosen the USA trade embargo on Cuba.
But officials with knowledge of the agreement say Cuba is making arrangements to lease aircraft for Cubana or share the route in order to offer USA flights from Havana without exposing its planes to seizure.
US teams played spring training games in Cuba before Castro’s revolution but none appeared here from March 1959 until the Baltimore Orioles faced Cuba’s national team in Havana in March 1999.
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Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement by Presidents Obama and Raul Castro that they were ending a half-century of U.S.-Cuban enmity.
