For the first time in more than 50 years, a commercial flight from the US has landed in Cuba.
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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced on Twitter Tuesday that he too would be on board the flight. Regular travellers, 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.
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.
Washington still bans Americans from visiting Cuba as tourists, but travel is permitted for 12 other categories, including cultural and educational exchange. Obama’s abolition of the restriction creates a far bigger market for commercial flights and makes it more likely in many cases that Americans engage in truly meaningful travel.
American said last month that it would put tickets for its Havana flights, including four from Florida, on sale once the Transportation Department gave its final approval to the flights. He called it “another step forward”.
Multiply those numbers by roughly 300 flights a week and you have the makings of a sea change in the U.S. -Cuba relationship, perhaps the most important since Presidents Raul Castro and Barack Obama declared detente almost two years ago.
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“If we can go there, if you can spend money there, if you can travel there, interact with the people, why not be able to trade with them?”
Regular flights “will allow more fluid movement of people, goods, information and ideas between two places that are very close geographically but distant politically”, he said. “We’re also fortunate to have a community of leaders who continue to show support for this important connection”.
There were cheers, applause and a sea of balloons as boarding for the historic flight got underway.
The JetBlue flight was flown by Captain Mark Luaces and First Officer Francisco Barreras, both Americans of Cuban descent, the airline said.
Cuban officials insist the continuing US ban on tourism will limit the impact of commercial flights to Cuba, but some experts believe the drastic reduction in the difficulty of flying to Cuba could turn the surge in USA visitors into a tidal wave.
Katko and two other lawmakers introduced legislation earlier this summer in an effort to block the flights to Cuba until they felt certain Cuban airport security could effectively prevent terrorists from targeting US-bound flights.
Services on regional carrier Silver Airways and American Airlines Group Inc from the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area that is home to a large Cuban-American population, to Cuba’s outlying provinces will be the next to start, in September.
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Mann said the companies probably offered to fly to Cuban cities unknown to many American travelers, so that US officials would look favorably on their applications to fly to Havana.
