The first commercial flight between the United States and Cuba in more than a half century lands in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara, re-establishing regular air service severed at the height of the Cold War.
The flight of JetBlue 387 opens a new era of US-Cuba travel, with about 300 flights a week connecting the US with the island cut off from most Americans by the 55-year-old trade embargo on Cuba and formal ban on US citizens engaging in tourism there.
New Yorkers Michelle Sanchez-Boyce (L) and Erika Munro Kennerly check in at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida ahead of their flight to Santa Clara, Cuba on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016 (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)
“Seeing the American airlines landing routinely around the island will drive a sense of openness, integration and normality. That has a huge psychological impact,” says Richard Feinberg, author of the new book “Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy.”
The restart of commercial travel between the two countries is one of the most important steps in President Barack Obama’s two-year-old policy of normalizing relations with the island. Historians disagree on the exact date of the last commercial flight but it appears to have been after Cuba banned incoming flights during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Secretary of State John Kerry says on Twitter that the last commercial flight was in 1961.
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