Cuba loses more airline support - JetBlue to cut capacity

BTN News
Wednesday, 15 February 2017

With US president Donald Trump threatening to roll back the liberalised Cuba flight arrangements okayed by his predecessor Barack Obama, JetBlue has joined American Airlines and announced it is slashing capacity there.

Under the US-Cuba aviation agreement signed a year ago, US airlines can operate up to 110 daily flights to Cuba - 20 daily flights to Havana and 10 daily flights to each of nine other international airports.

While airlines queued to win rights last year, making money on them has proved difficult. 

US residents still aren't allowed to visit Cuba as tourists, which limits the market quite considerably. Instead, travel must fall into one of 12 permitted categories including visiting family, educational, religious or humanitarian activities or participating in cultural programs.

Faced with limited demand, American Airlines is to drop one of two daily flights to secondary cities and downsize equipment on a few routes, while JetBlue recently downgraded all its routes to Cuba to smaller aircraft. 

Cuba loses more airline support - JetBlue to cut capacity

BTN News
Wednesday, 15 February 2017

With US president Donald Trump threatening to roll back the liberalised Cuba flight arrangements okayed by his predecessor Barack Obama, JetBlue has joined American Airlines and announced it is slashing capacity there.

Under the US-Cuba aviation agreement signed a year ago, US airlines can operate up to 110 daily flights to Cuba - 20 daily flights to Havana and 10 daily flights to each of nine other international airports.

While airlines queued to win rights last year, making money on them has proved difficult. 

US residents still aren't allowed to visit Cuba as tourists, which limits the market quite considerably. Instead, travel must fall into one of 12 permitted categories including visiting family, educational, religious or humanitarian activities or participating in cultural programs.

Faced with limited demand, American Airlines is to drop one of two daily flights to secondary cities and downsize equipment on a few routes, while JetBlue recently downgraded all its routes to Cuba to smaller aircraft.