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The Department of Transportation on Thursday tentatively selected eight airlines to fly a combined 20 daily flights to Havana from 10 U.S. airports. The flights are expected to begin in the fall or early next year.
“The department’s principal objective in making its proposed selections was to maximize public benefits, including choosing airlines that offered and could maintain the best ongoing service between the U.S. and Havana,” the DOT said in a statement.
The winning carriers are American, JetBlue, Southwest, Delta, Spirit, United, Alaska and Frontier.
The agency selected those airlines and routes from proposals submitted by 12 carriers for nearly 60 daily flights to Havana. Under the aviation agreement finalized between Cuba and the U.S. in February, however, only 20 daily commercial flights will be allowed between the U.S. and the Cuban capital.
Thursday’s decision by the DOT is preliminary. Airlines have until July 22 to object. A final ruling is expected later in the summer.
As expected, flights out of South Florida make up the largest share of the Havana service. U.S airlines would fly to Havana from both Miami and Fort Lauderdale six times daily if the DOT makes its recommendations final.
Two daily Havana flights would be available from New York Kennedy and a third would depart from Newark Liberty. One daily flight to Havana would be offered from each of Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Tampa and Los Angeles. Finally, United would offer one weekly flight to Havana from Houston.
Cities that were not selected for Havana service were Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis and Boston.
American, which has a hub in Miami, is the biggest winner under the tentative DOT decision, garnering a proposed five daily routes to Havana (four from Miami and one from Charlotte). JetBlue won two daily routes from Fort Lauderdale and one each from New York Kennedy and Orlando.
Southwest (two from Fort Lauderdale and one from Tampa) and Delta (Atl
anta, Miami, New York) each won three daily routes to Havana. Ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit would fly there twice daily from Fort Lauderdale. United would fly to Havana once daily from Newark plus weekly from Houston.
Alaska and Frontier would each offer one daily flight to Havana, from Los Angeles and Miami, respectively.
Southwest applauded the proposed DOT decision.
“As the largest carrier of domestic passengers in the United States, these nonstop flights from two of our Florida focus cities will provide high-quality, low-fare service to our customers while also offering convenient connections to Cuba for dozens of U.S. cities across the Southwest network,” CEO Gary Kelly said in a prepared remark.
The DOT said that in making its preliminary decisions it sought to encourage competition within routes while offering diversity both in the type of airlines that fly to Havana and in the cities from which service would be offered. The agency also considered connecting route networks to other U.S. destinations.
Ultimately, those considerations favored larger carriers. The four losing applicants for the proposed Cuba routes are Minnesota-based Sun County, Florida-based regional carrier Silver, the tiny Dynamic International Airways out of North Carolina and Miami-based Eastern Airlines, which began operations last year and offers charter flights to Cuba.
Among the commercial carriers, Silver is arguably the most hurt by the tentative DOT decision. The airline has already received DOT approval to fly to nine Cuba locales outside Havana — more than any other carrier — and has applied to fly to Havana from five Florida cities.
However, receiving at least one Havana approval was a cornerstone of Silver’s Cuba strategy, CFO Jason Bewley told Travel Weekly late last month.
Source: travelweekly.com
