United Gets Daily Houston to Havana Service
Jennifer Billock April 03, 2018
More flights from the United States to Cuba are almost back, thanks to new allocations from the Department of Transportation to give daily service to several cities to fly into Havana, though final approvals from the department are still pending.
Travelers, get ready to pack for Cuba. The Department of Transportation issued new allocations last week for increased flights heading from several US cities into Havana. Final approval for the routes is still pending, though.
With these new routes, United’s service out of Houston will increase to daily flights instead of once weekly. American will now fly to Havana from Miami one extra flight per day, bringing the total to five daily flights. Delta will now fly two daily flights to Havana from Miami. JetBlue will fly from Fort Lauderdale up to two times daily, and will fly from Boston once every Saturday. Southwest will also fly from Fort Lauderdale, up to three times daily.
According to the Department of Transportation, the Cuba market is still in development and it would be best served by the airlines themselves spearheading increased interest to the destination.
“Carriers have been adjusting schedules and capacity, and some have left the market altogether,” the DOT said during its review of the new route applications, reported by ATW. “Adding to the still evolving nature of the market the [Trump] administration announced a change in its policy toward Cuba and implemented regulations that, among other things, ended the widely used authorization for ‘individual people-to-people’ travel to Cuba. … The available traffic data and limited service history at Havana are not sufficient to draw specific conclusions as to the likelihood of future success or failure for any given proposal. On that basis, the public interest would be best served by … allocating limited rights in developmental markets, i.e., allocating the available frequencies to a variety of carriers and allowing them to seek to develop the market.”
[Photo: Shutterstock]
