The mood aboard Wednesday’s flight from Fort Lauderdale was celebratory, and tinged with imagery from the era when Cuba was the United States’ tropical backyard escape.
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The landing of the JetBlue flight is being viewed as an important new step in thawing ties between the two countries.
A burly, bearded Cuban-American flight attendant nearly choked up as he told us, “We are really excited that this happened for Cubans and for people from the United States as well”.
“That has a huge psychological impact”, he said. The agreement is part of the Obama Administration’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba.
Neta Rodriguez, a 62-year-old Havana-born South Florida homemaker, checked in Wednesday morning with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons for a visit to family in Santa Clara and Havana.
United States transport secretary Anthony Foxx was one of the passengers on board the flight.
The last time an American airline flew scheduled service to Cuba was over 50 years ago on a propeller plane, according to JetBlue executive vice president Marty McGeorge.
That price “puts extra money in immigrant communities’ pockets and it makes it so those families can have much more cash available to buy the things their families need and that are still hard to acquire on the island”, Bustamante said. Tourist travel to Cuba remains prohibited.
And the water cannon salute for the inaugural commercial flight to Cuba. This massive influx of tourism will certainly boost the damaged Cuban economy. Regular travelers, including some of Cuban descent, occupied almost half the seats on the flight to Santa Clara, a city with a population of about 200,000 that is known for its monument to revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
These require four-hour check-in waits and charge high rates for any luggage in excess of restrictive baggage allowances.
Also, U.S. travelers that have no connection to the island find complicated flying on charters since they don’t offer online booking, which is necessary to overcome the federal affidavit required for Americans.
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The flight was the first of 110 expected trips every day connecting USA cities to airports in the Communist-run island, many of them in or near tourism hotspots. Right now, travel to Cuba still has to fall under one of 12 approved reasons to be legal. They still have to fit one of 12 categories and fill out a federal affidavit, since a ban on USA tourism remains in effect. They include family visits, journalism, government business, religious activities and public performances.
