US and Cuban officials will formally sign an agreement on 16 February to re-open scheduled airline service from the USA to the island nation after a 56-year-long ban.
US Transportation secretary Anthony Fox and Cuban Transport minister Carlos Manuel Pazo Torrado will sign the agreement in Havana, clearing the way for US carriers to begin applying for up to 110 newly-authorized daily routes between the USA and 10 Cuban cities.
The US Transportation Department plans to open later on 16 February a 15-day window for US airlines to apply for the new routes, including 20 daily frequencies to Havana and 10 each to Ignacio Agramonte, Camaguey, Cayo Coco, Pinar del Rio, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Manzanillo, Varadero, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba.
The DOT expects to make a final decision for the most heavily-contested routes “sometime this summer”, says Brandon Belford, deputy assistant secretary for Aviation and International Affairs.
Other routes with fewer competing applications could be announced sooner, he adds.
The DOT’s main criteria for selecting carriers are maximising public benefits for American travelers, Belford. The number of seats an aircraft can hold is a factor in making that decision, he says.
“There is still a handful of steps that US carriers will need to make with our counterparts in Cuba,” Belford says. “That’s part of our desire and our goal of making our decision by the summertime. That will enable carriers to take enough time to take care of all the other regulatory matters.”
“We are aware the carriers have made a number trips and conversations with all the relevant authorities [in Cuba] to grease the skids when this becomes an opportunity,” Belford adds.
The opening of the Cuban market to scheduled service comes more than a year after the US allowed chartered flights to the island.
A trade embargo on Cuba is still in effect, but the US now allows American citizens to travel to the island for 12 stated purposes, including meeting with relatives and learning about the people and culture.
Several private lawsuits – some dating back to the 1960 revolution in Havana – have been filed against the Cuban government in US courts, making it perilous for Cuban airlines to land aircraft at American airports. Cuban airlines are not expected to launch service to the US as a result.
Around 10-15 charter flights currently operate daily between the USA and Cuba, says Thomas Engle, US deputy assistant secretary of state for transportation affairs.
“In the year-plus since the two presidents embarked on this new relationship and even before we initialed this [memorandum of understanding] on civil aviation we’ve already seen an increase in authorised travel by US citizens to Cuba,” Engle says. “The cuban government informed us interestingly that concomitant with that they’ve noticed an increase in travel from third countries. Rapprochement appears to be having a general positive effect on international travel to Cuba. Cubans clearly welcome that. They are aware of the infrastructure complaints that they do have. They have general plans to upgrade that infrastructure.”
Source: Cirium Dashboard
