CUBA-US: Direct Passenger Flights Renewed

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 15 1998 (IPS) - Cubans planning to fly between Miami and Havana can look forward, as of Wednesday, to a 45-minute commute, rather than what had turned into a 12-hour ordeal.

Thousands of Cuban families, divided by the Straits of Florida, plan to take advantage of the resumption of direct flights between Havana and Miami.

At least 1,000 Cubans living in the United States will now be able fly to Havana weekly without being routed through the Bahamas or the Mexican city of Cancun, the routes they have had to use since U.S. President Bill Clinton prohibited direct charter flights two and a half years ago.

The easing of the ban will cut the trip by hundreds of kilometres and several hours, especially benefiting the elderly and young couples with small children.

“My nephew came two months ago, and the whole trip, from customs in the Miami airport to the landing in Havana, took him 12 hours,” said Melba Acosta, a 61-year-old pensioner whose daughter, brother and several nephews and nieces live in Miami.

The just over 300-km trip between the two cities, which takes around 45 minutes, was unnecessarily lengthened by meticulous customs searches and long stopovers in third party countries.

Acosta is now eagerly awaiting her brother, a 60-year-old businessman who has not visited Cuba since 1980, scheduled to arrive Thursday.

“My brother kept putting off the trip, but when Clinton announced the resumption of direct flights, he was among the first to head to the agency to put his name on the list,” Acosta told IPS.

An estimated two million Cubans live abroad, most of them in Miami, Florida. The 1990 U.S. census showed that 80 percent of the more than one million Cubans living in that country had close relatives in the Caribbean nation.

Independent estimates indicate that upwards of 100,000 Cubans living in the United States will travel to Cuba this year in the wake of the renewal of direct charter flights.

In April, Clinton announced the lifting of several sanctions against Cuba in response to Pope John Paul II’s call for the world to open itself up to Cuba, issued during his historic January visit here.

The easing of restrictions included the authorisation of direct flights carrying humanitarian aid, cash remittances of up to 100 dollars a month and the simplification of bureaucratic procedures for shipping medicine and medical equipment to Cuba.

But the resumption of charter flights will only benefit Cuban- Americans, their descendants or people cohabitating with Cuban- Americans. U.S. citizens not of Cuban origin will still need a special license to travel and spend money here, according to the laws governing the 36-year economic blockade against Cuba.

United Airlines inaugurated its Miami-Havana route on Wednesday. The U.S. company was contracted in Miami by the ABC Charters agency, and the route will have a frequency of five flights a week, with a capacity of 205 passengers per flight.

Two other companies, C&T Charters and Wilson International, are also keen on flying the Miami-Havana route, but have not yet received the necessary permits from the Cuban and U.S. governments.

“The capacity is not enough to meet demand,” Nilda Serret, the owner of Cuba Paquetes, one of the travel agencies which books flights to the island, said in Miami.

Direct charter flights were cancelled by Clinton in February 1996 in reprisal for the Cuban air force’s shootdown of two small civilian aircraft flown by the Miami-based anti-Castro group Brothers to the Rescue.

The United States first suspended regular lines of communication with Cuba in 1962. Although the U.S. government later allowed Cubans living there to visit Cuba from 1963 to 1975, the Cuban government only allowed them to return for visits in 1978.

The aim of “family reunification” was broken off again after the massive 1980 exodus through the port of Mariel. It was then renewed in 1984 and suspended a year later, when the United States approved broadcasts towards Cuba by Radio Marti, an anti-Castro station.

Flights took place throughout the 1990s, until a new suspension in response to Cuba’s decision to open its coastline to anyone who wished to attempt the hazardous sea journey to the United States.

Clinton then renewed the flights again in October 1995, as part of a policy designed to boost informal contacts between the two countries. But the decision only remained in place until early 1996.

“You live with the fear that now it is one way and tomorrow it’ll be another. That’s why my brother wanted to take advantage of the opportunity immediately,” said Acosta, who added that when her brother left in 1965 she thought she would never see him again.

Local observers say that for decades, Cuban families have been held hostage by the conflict between Cuba and the United States, separated and dependent on the ups-and-downs of politics and on the excessive politicisation of immigration problems by both countries.