The State Department announced that the USA and Cuba on February 16 signed an agreement to allow airlines from either country to perform scheduled and charter services between any point in the US and any point in Cuba.
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“Today is a historic day in the relationship between Cuba and the United States”, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in Havana, where he signed the accord with his Cuban counterpart Adel Yzquierdo Rodríguez.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said carriers’ applications for the Cuba slots are due March 2.
“So we do not anticipate Cuban-owned aircraft serving the U.S.in the near future”, he said.
Officials from the United States and Cuba have signed an agreement to restore passenger flights between the two countries.
Based on the agreement between both countries which was arrived at in December, there is potential for 110 daily round-trip flights in and out of Cuba.
“We don’t expect the market to necessarily demand 10 per day to each of the other non-Havana destinations”, said Thomas Engle, deputy assistant secretary of state for transportation affairs.
American Airlines’ leaders said they will, however, include Miami International Airport in the company’s application for commercial service.
Airlines have been able to offer charter flights for Americans to travel to Cuba under certain circumstances, including “people-to-people” education exchanges with a sponsoring organization.
Cuba is still under U.S. economic sanctions which have inflicted over $121 billion worth of damages on its economy, according to Havana.
US residents living near Canada would also often travel to Cuba via Canadian airports. “Assuming service is approved, United customers will benefit from United’s expanded global route network and new opportunities for leisure and business travel to Cuba”, the statement said. Those flights will continue, but new scheduled service should make Cuba more widely accessible.
The first flight could take-off as early as later this year but travel to the island nation for Americans would still be limited to one of 12 designated categories, including educational purposes, humanitarian efforts and research.
The charter services, however, could have difficulty competing against the new commercial flights.
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Tourism is still not an acceptable reason to go to Cuba.
