Commercial Flights To Cuba Are About To Take Off

The announcement of the aviation deal comes one year after President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro began the process of restoring diplomatic ties.

The U.S. and Cuba have launched a host of bilateral dialogues, including on property claims, direct mail service, civil aviation, environmental cooperation, counternarcotics, law enforcement, human rights and telecommunications.

The United States and Cuba have agreed to allow 110 round-trip flights on U.S. airlines to Cuba per day, according to Thomas Engle, deputy assistant secretary for transportation affairs at the U.S. State Department. The United States and Cuba have reached an agreement to resume regularly scheduled commercial air travel between the two countries, the U.S. State Department confirmed today.

A Miami-bound American Airlines charter plane waits on the tarmac at José Martí International Airport on March 1, 2015 in Havana, Cuba. Obama eased travel restrictions to the Caribbean island in September, but general tourism is banned by the US trade embargo, which can only be lifted by Congress.

The Fort Worth-based carriers comment came one day after the US government reached an agreement with Cuba to reopen commercial flights to that island nation.

Other members of the delegation are the Cuban players who emigrated to the United States José Dariel Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Alexei Ramírez and Brayan Peña; as well as John Jay, who was born in Florida but has a Cuban origin. “We have to make enough moves so that if there is an unfavorable change in the U.S”.

The renewal of air travel is the latest step in the thawing relationship between the two countries which persisted even after the Cold War ended.

The U.S. has expressed disappointment with what it calls Cuba’s unwillingness to cooperate with executive actions such as allowing U.S. exports to the Cuban private sector and sales of equipment to the Cuban state telecommunications company.

And despite US carriers are willing to open scheduled service to Cuba, it is unclear when these would actually resume as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires to verify that safety regulations in Cuban airports are duly in place.

Obama said he had made the decision because he had concluded that 50 years of trying to encourage democratic and economic change in Cuba by isolating it had simply failed. Flaco hopes this will make it easier for him to visit his 2-year-old son in Cuba.

The number of Americans travelling to Cuba is already up 50% from a year ago but flying means dealing with expensive charter airlines that are hard to book. Travelers must meet special criteria and fall under 12 categories such as “people-to-people” trips that encourage relations between US and Cuban citizens. “I think you’ll see a lot more Republicans shifting their position”.