The airlines will fly out of Fort Lauderdale and Miami to get to Cuba.
It’s about to get easier to travel to Cuba as the United States approved more than a dozen new flights to the island nation on American Airlines and JetBlue.
The new flights — including 13 weekly American Airlines flights from Miami and a weekly JetBlue flight from Fort Lauderdale — will increase access to Cuba, Reuters reported, citing the Department of Transportation. The new flights will be in addition to American’s six daily flights and JetBlue’s three weekday flights to Havana.
The flights must begin by mid-December, according to the wire service.
American Airlines, which received permission to resume service to some smaller airports in Cuba earlier this year, said the flights “will enhance service and access between the U.S. and these non-Havana points, after more than two years during which such service was suspended,” according to Reuters.
The new flights come months after the Biden administration started allowing Americans to sign up for a group trip to visit Cuba as well as OK’d commercial and charter flights to cities beyond just Havana. At the time, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration’s “policy will continue to focus on empowering the Cuban people to help them create a future free from repression and economic suffering.”
The administration has not reinstated individual people-to-people educational travel. People-to-people group tours were first approved by the Obama administration in 2015 as part of an effort to restore diplomatic relations with the country. That was then expanded to allow cruise ship travel to the country as well as individual people-to-people trips. But in 2017, the Trump administration cracked down on travel to the country, first banning cruise ships and later banning all flights to Cuba except to Havana.
In addition to the new flight rules, the Biden administration made plans to reinstate the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program and increase consular services and visa processing. (https://www.travelandleisure.com/cuba-havana-jetblue-american-6741395)
