First U.S. Commercial Flight To Cuba In Decades Lands
by Daniel McCarthy /
JetBlue flight 387 took off from Terminal 3 of Fort Lauderdale’s Hollywood International Airport at 10:06 a.m. on Wednesday morning—and when its wheels touched the ground a little under an hour later, it officially made history. Flight 387 is the first direct U.S. commercial flight to touch down in Cuba in more than 50 years.
Backed by a salsa band, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes and Cuban ambassador José Ramón Cabañas were on hand to mark the occasion. “Today is another historic day,” Cabañas said. “And we have been saying that phrase many times during the last months.”
In a statement, American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) president and CEO Zane Kerby congratulated all U.S. airlines making their inaugural flights to Cuba this week, calling the news “a significant step in the right direction that will benefit American consumers and the ASTA travel agents who serve them.”
ASTA’s travel agent members “believe that Americans ought to be allowed to travel across the globe without restriction, allowing them to act as ambassadors of freedom and American values abroad,” he said.
JetBlue will fly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays through this month, and then change to a daily schedule on October 1. Soon, 10 other U.S. airlines will join it, with more than 100 flights per day.
Americans ought to be allowed to travel across the globe without restriction, allowing them to act as ambassadors of freedom and American values abroad.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were officially restored last year when Secretary of State John Kerry and a group that included ASTA’s Kerby and senior vice president of government and industry affairs Eben Peck attended the historic raising of an American flag over the embassy in Havana in September, 2015.
The countries then signed an agreement to restore scheduled airline service in February, 2016. Most major American airlines applied for Cuba slots; American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, Silver Airways, Southwest Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines were approved to fly to nine Cuban cities, other than Havana, starting in the fall.??The DOT later approved eight airlines to fly to Havana—JetBlue, American, Delta, Alaska, United, Frontier, Southwest and Spirit.
American travelers are required to get visas before traveling to Cuba, though all 10 airlines approved for travel provide them for a price.
Almost 150,000 Americans traveled to Cuba in 2015, a 60% increase over the 90,000 in 2014.