Caribbean & Central America - June 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

On 10 June the US Department of Transportation authorised an initial batch of new scheduled air routes between the US and Cuba, with American Airlines poised to run eight flights a day to the island as of September.

The newly revived US-Cuba aviation treaty, inked earlier this year, contemplates 110 daily flights by US airlines to Cuba, 20 to Havana and 10 each to nine other secondary airports on the island.

The Department of Transport has awarded only non-Havana routes for now. The slots for Havana, the most lucrative and the most requested by interested US airlines, will be decided later in the year. According to US officials, US carriers requested three times the allocated daily number of 20 flights to Havana, indicating the expected surge in US demand for travel to Cuba’s main international airport in coming years.

Meanwhile, American Airlines, which has a large hub in Miami, will run its eight regional Cuban flights a day as follows – twice a day to Holguín, Matanzas, and Santa Clara; and once a day to Camaguey and Cienfuegos. From Fort Launderdale, JetBlue Airways will offer three flights a day, one each to Camaguey, Holguín, and Santa Clara. Southwest Airlines will also run three daily fights, two to Matanzas and one to Santa Clara. Silver Airways, a small local player, will operate 39 flights a week from Fort Lauderdale to all nine secondary airports in Cuba, averaging 5-6 to day. It will fly small 34-seat turboprops.

Elsewhere, the low cost Frontier Airlines plans 16 weekly flights from Chicago and Philadelphia to several Cuban airports, while Sun Country Airlines will fly once a week from its Minneapolis base to Matanzas and Santa Clara.

These new scheduled flights are expected to be very competitive price-wise with existing charter flights to Cuba, which will continue to operate. Moreover, they will be able to fly at more convenient times, adding to their competitive edge. US travellers to Cuba must still fall under one of the 12 approved travel licences for Cuba – regular tourism remains strictly banned under the embargo. However, following recent US regulatory changes, US travellers now only need to ‘self-certify’ the purpose of their trip upon arrival at the airport check-in desk, thereby making it much easier to go to Cuba without hindrance. US travellers to date have also typically had to travel in organised groups certified to travel under one of the licence categories – for example, cultural exchange. This requirement too has latterly been relaxed.

Two million tourists to date in 2016

Cuba continues to enjoy a surge in tourism, now one of the mainstays of the economy and a critical source of foreign exchange for the cash-strapped government at a time of continued weak global prices for key exports like nickel. According to data released on 13 June by the national statistics institute (ONEI), Cuba has hosted 2m foreign visitors to date in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%. The main source markets remain Canada, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Argentina, with continued growth also in arrivals from the US. Cuban authorities now expect 3.7m tourists overall this year, up from 3.5m in 2015. Revenues thus also should rise from last year’s estimated US$1.94bn, which itself was a 10.7% increase over the previous year. Additional hotel capacity is planned for Havana, Varadero and Holguín, among other places.

• Cubana

It is unclear when Cuba’s state airline, Cubana de Aviación, might resume flights to the US – for years now it has not flown there for fear of having its planes seized under the US economic embargo. Apparently this difficulty has been settled under the terms of the restored aviation agreement, however it remains the case that Cubana planes may not yet meet US air transport safety standards.