The airline Air Canada reactivates its commercial flights to Havana this Friday, after two and a half years of not operating on the island due to the closure of airports since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Air Canada will have the right to operate five direct weekly trips to Cuba, the Ministry of Tourism explained to the official press. The restart will also allow Cubans to connect with Japan on a two-stop journey, in Toronto and Vancouver.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had announced last July that the airline will operate a daily frequency to Haneda Airport, one of the most important in Japanplus four flights each week to Narita Airport.
With the entry of 324,252 visitors as of September, Canada positioned itself this 2022 as the main source of tourists to the Island, a figure that is 34 times higher than the 9,265 received in the same period of 2021. According to the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei)Canadian tourists also represent 30% of the travelers received this year.
Despite the increase in air traffic to the island, tourism has not taken off and has made the Cuban government back down on its projection of international arrivals
For this Sunday, October 30, the restart of operations of the Mexican Aeroméxico, which also stopped its operations on the Island in 2020 due to the coronavirus, is planned. The company, the sixth largest in Latin America, will offer seven weekly flights between Mexico City and Havana.
Likewise, the Haitian airline Sunrise Airways ad this week that as of November 2 there will be two trips a week from Port-au-Prince to Havana and Santiago de Cuba, in the Airbus A321 aircraft, with capacity for 220 passengers, available thanks to a leasing agreement with the Dominican SkyCana.
The new plan of the Haitian company foresees flights to Camagüey, on Wednesdays, and to Holguín, on Saturdays. According to the airline, its offer of seats will exceed 2,600 spaces and will mean an increase in its operation of 66% compared to October.
Despite the increase in air traffic to the island, tourism has not taken off and has made the Cuban government back down on its projection of international arrivals. Initially, the authorities had anticipated the arrival of a little more than 2.5 million foreign visitors this 2022, but this Thursday reduced that figure to 1.7 million.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine takes its toll on Cuban tourism, since Russia was the country that provided the most travelers to the Island in 2021. This year the flow has contracted by 65%.
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