{"id":792,"date":"2016-03-04T04:33:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T10:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=792"},"modified":"2016-03-04T04:54:49","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T10:54:49","slug":"flights-to-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=792","title":{"rendered":"Flights to Cuba, business gold or folly?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Flights to Cuba, is it business gold or just plain folly? That&#8217;s the question I ask, as a mass of airlines have lined up to request permission to operate service to the Island nation. The list of airlines petitioning the government for route access includes Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United. It appears that\u00a0the number of airlines and quantities of flights being requested are huge. The fact that most refugees left Cuba because they did not want to be oppressed by a communist regime would lead me to believe that those people would not want to return to Cuba, even to visit. Nothing has changed in regards to the Cuban government. As far as tourism goes, visiting a communist country is not very high on my wish list. In fact, it&#8217;s not on the list at all.\u00a0Americans can go to Cuba now if they wish without having to apply for permission, as long as the trip falls within one of 12 reasons. The 12 categories of legal travel includes visits to close relatives, academic studies, professional research, journalism, religious activities,\u00a0arts or public performances, and\u00a0participating in sporting events. Tourism is still\u00a0prohibited, and travelers must\u00a0denote the purpose of their trip and keep all\u00a0receipts for a period of five years.<\/p>\n<h2>Cuba applications filed with Department of Transportation<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Alaska Airlines: Proposing to operate two daily nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Havana, Cuba. The Los Angeles area has the largest Cuban population in the Western US.<\/li>\n<li>American Airlines:\u00a0Proposing to operate 10 daily flights\u00a0to Havana from Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas\/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Miami. The airline also has proposed\u00a0daily service between Miami and five other Cuban\u00a0destinations.<\/li>\n<li>Delta Air Lines:\u00a0Proposing to operate nonstop daily service to Havana from Atlanta, Miami, New York\u00a0(JFK), and Orlando.<\/li>\n<li>JetBlue: Proposing to operate nonstop daily service to Havana from Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, New York (JFK), Newark, Orlando, and Tampa.<\/li>\n<li>Southwest Airlines: Proposing to operate nonstop daily service to Havana from Ft. Lauderdale,\u00a0Orlando, and Tampa.\u00a0The airline also\u00a0applied for service to\u00a0Varadero and Santa Clara from Ft. Lauderdale.<\/li>\n<li>United Airlines: Proposing to operate nonstop daily service to Havana from Chicago, Houston,\u00a0Newark, and Washington DC (Dulles).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-798\" src=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Cuba-300x150.jpg\" alt=\"Cuba\" width=\"652\" height=\"326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Cuba-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Cuba-768x383.jpg 768w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Cuba-1024x511.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Cuba.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flights to Cuba, is it business gold or just plain folly? That&#8217;s the question I ask, as a mass of airlines have lined up to request permission to operate service to the Island nation. The list of airlines petitioning the government for route access includes Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United. It appears that\u00a0the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":803,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}