Cuba announcement includes good news for Seattle travelers
Jul 7, 2016, 1:49 PM
Commercial airline service to Havana, Cuba from 10 American cities received tentative government approval Thursday. The green light could be something for Seattle-area residents to get excited about.
Alaska Airlines, for example, received approval for a route from Los Angeles to Cuba, KIRO Radio travel expert Steve Danishek says. People from Seattle will be able to fly to Cuba via a connecting flight.
“They got one [of two routes],” he said. “That’s good news.”
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But don’t get excited quite yet. Danishek says the process to enter Cuba is expected to be much more time-consuming.
“This isn’t going to be like buying a ticket to Mexico,” he told Seattle’s Morning News.
Travel to Cuba has been limited as visitors have to fit into one of 12 strict categories. Most Americans still can’t legally visit the communist country. The Obama administration eased rules, however, making it possible for travelers to design their own “people-to-people” cultural exchange tours with little oversight.
Once Cuba becomes more open to tourism, Danishek says it will be interesting to see if the government can handle the flood of people looking to visit. Commercial airlines are already looking at third-party companies to help expedite the vetting process to get into Cuba, he says.
Interest in visiting Cuba skyrocketed since relations between the two nations began to heal in 2014. More than 100,000 U.S. travelers went to Cuba last year.
The decision to open commercial flights to Cuba won’t be finalized until later this summer. That gives a 30-day public comment period. The Transportation Department announced that six airlines will begin service as early as fall.
The approved airlines: Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and United. The cities that will have direct flights to Cuba: Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, New Jersey, New York, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa.
KIRO 7 contributed to this story.
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