Six U.S. airlines approved for first regular flights to Cuba

The U.S. Transportation Department on Friday approved six domestics airlines to begin scheduled flights between Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis/St. Paul and Cuba as early as this fall.    The U.S. Transportation Department on Friday approved six domestics airlines to begin scheduled flights between Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis/St. Paul and Cuba as early as this fall. 
   On Feb. 16, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs Charles Rivkin signed an arrangement to re-establish scheduled air service between the United States and Cuba.
   The airlines receiving the awards are American, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest, and Sun Country.
   Scheduled service will connect the U.S. cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Philadelphia with nine Cuban cities: Camagüey, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Cienfuegos, Holguín, Manzanillo, Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba.
   Under the new arrangement, each country has the opportunity to operate up to 10 daily roundtrip flights between the United States and each of Cuba’s nine international airports, other than Havana, for a total of 90 daily roundtrips.  
   Longer term, the arrangement provides for up to 20 daily roundtrip flights between the United States and Havana.
   “Collectively, U.S. carriers have requested nearly 60 flights per day to Havana, thus requiring DOT to select from among the proposals. A decision on the Havana routes will be announced later this summer,” the DOT said.