US airlines vie for Cuba flights; Havana top destination

Alaska Airlines-seemingly the only USA carrier with a concept of Cuba’s still limited and fragile infrastructure-has placed a relatively modest request to fly two daily nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Havana operating 737-900ERs.

American is also seeking frequencies to serve Havana from Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, New York John F Kennedy and Los Angeles. With the new agreement, each country can operate up to 20 daily round-trip flights between the USA and Havana and up to 10 daily round-trip flights between the US and each of Cuba’s nine other global airports. The majority are from its Miami International airport hub, which serves the largest population of Cuban Americans in the USA.

Only 20 of those flights can go to Havana, in addition to the current 10 to 15 charter flights a day. It also requested three daily flights from Fort Lauderdale to two other Cuban airports.

The Dallas-based carrier said it wants to fly out of three different airports in Florida, with most of the daily service leaving from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport. American proposed serving five cities – Santa Clara, Holguin, Varadero, Camaguey and Cienfuegos – with daily flights from Miami.

Delta and other airlines applied for routes to Cuba in preparation for the resumption of scheduled commercial airline flights from the United States to Cuba for the first time in more than 50 years.

Cuba is still under a US trade embargo that can be lifted only through congressional action, but travel for medical or religious purposes, family visits and educational exchange is allowed. “While many airlines will apply to serve the large, lucrative Havana routes, Silver is applying to provide convenient, direct service to all 10 Cuban destinations from five Florida cities that are essential for our residents”.

Southwest Airlines Co LUV.N , United Continental Holdings Inc UAL.N and Delta Air Lines Inc DAL.N also filed extensive route requests, with Delta arguing its proposed Miami routes were necessary to counterbalance American’s otherwise market dominance. Both charter and scheduled passengers will be required to disclose that they fall into one of 12 categories of authorized travel to the island nation, and pure tourism isn’t allowed. Charter flights are expensive, frequently chaotic and lack numerous traditional supports of commercial aviation such as online booking and 24-hour customer service. Silver Airways is Florida’s home-state airline and is the only airline with its primary hub in South Florida, which is uniquely situated to provide the best connections to all of the US through multiple airline partnerships. It is only seeking around 1.6 frequencies for its planned eight-times weekly service to Havana from Newark and once-weekly service to the Cuban capital from Chicago O’Hare, Houston Intercontinental and Washington Dulles.

Material from the Associated Press and Bloomberg News was included in this report.