Business View Caribbean - March 2016 13
ing the airline’s focus cities in South Florida, New
York and Boston. JetBlue anticipates a start date of
September 8, 2016, or within 100 days after receipt
of all necessary approvals, whichever is earlier. Jet-
Blue plans to offer service on its fuel efficient and
state-of-the-art Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, which
it said are optimally sized for maximizing the public
benefits with the few newly-available frequencies to
Cuba. JetBlue first began operating charters to Cuba
in 2011 and now flies to Havana and Santa Clara
from New York, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, and
Tampa. JetBlue plans to continue operating charter
flights with its partners as the process of assigning
frequencies for scheduled service flights proceeds.
Southwest Airlines requested governmental approv-
al to serve Cuba with daily nonstop flights from the
carrier’s three busiest airports in Florida: Ft Lauder-
dale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL); Tampa
Bay International Airport (TPA); and Orlando Interna-
tional Airport (MCO). The carrier applied to serve Ha-
vana (HAV) from all three Florida cities and addition-
ally to serve Varadero (VRA) and Santa Clara (SNU)
from Ft Lauderdale (Miami Area). Upon approval,
Southwest intends to initiate service to Cuba later
this year.
United Airlines submitted an application to provide
service from four of its largest U.S. gateway cities –
Newark/New York, Houston, Washington, DC, and
Chicago – to Havana’s José Martí International Air-
port. If approved, United will be one of the first U.S.
airlines to offer customers daily, nonstop scheduled
service to Cuba.
“This is a historic moment for our company, our
employees and, most importantly, our customers,”
said Oscar Munoz, United’s president and chief ex-
ecutive officer. “We want to be the first choice for
passengers traveling between the U.S. and Cuba.
We’re able to offer customers the best access,
convenience and connections to and from Havana
through our industry-leading global route network,
and we’re excited to compete for this.
United’s proposal outlines its planned service to Ha-
vana from hubs serving four of the country’s larg-
est Cuban-American populations. The service would
include a total of 11 roundtrip flights per week with
daily service from Newark Liberty and one addition-
al Saturday flight (eight weekly flights), along with
a Saturday-only flight from Houston George Bush
Intercontinental, Washington Dulles and Chicago
O’Hare (three weekly flights). Service to Havana
on these routes will be operated with United Wi-Fi-
equipped Boeing 737-800 two-cabin aircraft.
The DOT is expected to award the available route
authorities before the end of summer.
