MADRID, Spain. – The US. government will expand flights to Havana with the addition of 13 new weekly American Airlines flight frequencies from Miami and one weekly JetBlue flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The start of these flights is projected for mid-December 2022, according to information from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) quoted by the British agency Reuters.
At present, American Airlines operates six daily flights to Havana, and JetBlue operates three. JetBlue will fly on Saturdays using Airbus S320 aircrafts that seat 162 passengers.
Last June, USDOT lifted a series of travel restrictions to the island, and ended the ban of U.S. airline flights to Cuban airports located in the provinces, which were suspended in December 2019 by order of then president Donald Trump.
On that occasion, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated that it was a measure “in support of the Cuban people and in the foreign policy interests of the United States.”
In July of this year, USDOT approved American Airlines’ request to renew its operations to the island’s provinces. The four destinations chosen by American Airlines to reestablish its flights to points outside Havana were Varadero (Matanzas), Santa Clara (Villa Clara), Holguín and Santiago de Cuba.
The recent expansion takes place after American Airlines and JetBue disputed the available quotas for establishing new flights to Cuba, since USDOT set as limit of 20 daily round-trip flights to the “José Martí” International Airport in Havana.
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