Crew members at the Santa Clara Abel Santamaría International Airport in Cuba welcome JetBlue Flight 387, the first commercial flight to Cuba from the U.S.in more than 50 years.
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JetBlue Flight 387 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Santa Clara, Cuba was completed in 51 minutes Wednesday, the first commercial U.S.to Cuba flight in more than five decades.
The announcement came on the day of the first scheduled flight to Cuba in over 50 years, a JetBlue Airways service from Fort Lauderdale to Santa Clara.
In addition, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) today finalized its selection of eight US airlines to begin scheduled flights to Havana as early as this fall.
The flight is the first commercial airliner to travel between the two countries in decades and is only possible as a result of the December 2014 normalization of relations between the USA and Cuba.
Eight commercial airlines in the USA received final approval to fly to Havana, Cuba’s capital and most popular tourist destination.
In addition to JetBlue’s direct flights to Cuba, six other U.S. airlines have been given the green light to fly directly to nine Cuban cites, John S. Kavulich, president of the U.S. -Cuba Trade and Economic Council, told The Times.
The approved airlines now need to apply for Cuban government authority to operate the flights.
USA travel to Cuba is on track to triple this year to more than 300,000 visitors in the wake of the 2014 declaration of detente.
United States transport secretary Anthony Foxx was among the passengers on today’s flight.
The flight originated in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is the first Cuba-bound US commercial flight since Washington and Havana moved to restore relations in December 2014.
Cuba’s vice minister of transportation Eduardo Rodriguez gave a press conference on Monday, where he stated that this is a “positive step” and a “concrete contribution” towards the normalization of the relations between the countries.
Keylor said the resumed air travel brought with it a “serious challenge” to America’s strict economic embargo of the island nation.
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. The flights also will originate from Atlanta; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; Newark, N.J.; NY; and Orlando and Tampa, Fla. You can buy Cuban visas in US airports.
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Tourism to Cuba is still illegal, but there are now 12 categories of “authorized travel”.
