AREQUIPA, Peru – The crisis of the state airline Cubana de Aviación was exposed this weekend during an interview with Joel Archer Santos, president of the Cuban Aviation Corporation (CACSA).
The manager commented that at the beginning of 2025 the regime’s airline has only two operational aircraft on the Island and is working on the recovery of an unspecified number of other aircraft.
In the conversation, shared by the Minister of Transportation on the Island, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, the leader of CACSA blamed the US embargo for the lack of solutions in the sector.
As is customary in the official discourse of Castroism, the official pointed out that Washington’s measures prevent the Cuban Government from accessing new aircraft or parts that are needed when a plane suffers a breakdown.
With the justification of the embargo, Archer Santos said that there were paralyzed renovations in the country. “That’s not how aviation works,” he lamented. You have to wait for the production of the pieces abroad, and then import them to Cuba.
Cubana de Aviación, it emerged in the interview, only has two operational aircraft and currently the routes only include the provinces of Camagüey, Holguin and Santiago de Cuba, others with connections through international flights. Meanwhile, transportation to Guantánamo or Manzanillo envisions a short-term solution.
Although not without difficulties, on the other hand, the manager celebrated the restoration last December of the flights to the Isle of Youth, from Havana, with two weekly frequencies.
Last March Cubana de Aviación announced that before the end of 2024 it would recover three aircraft from its fleet (two long-range and one medium), a promise that, come 2025, is far from being fulfilled.
Cubana de Aviación in 2024
Beyond the restart of the connection between Havana and Panama in June 2024, last year was a dark period for the state airline.
In July, the company lost its permits for regular cargo and mail operations in Ecuador, following a decision by the National Civil Aviation Council (CNAC).
As reported by the aeronautical reporter Nicolás Larenas on his official blogthe measure appears in Agreement 025/2024 of July 2 and is due to the difficulties of Cubana de Aviación to operate in Ecuador, specifically due to the cancellation of its only cargo plane, a Tupolev Tu-204-100EC, parked in Havana and without being able to be put into circulation.
The CNAC’s decision is based on the non-compliance by Cubana de Aviación with the provisions of article 48 of the Regulation of Operating Permits for the Provision of Commercial Air Transport Service and on the definitive closure of its commercial partner LAS de Colombia. which operated in its place, with a weekly flight at Quito Airport.
For its part, in March 2024, the Cuban Government advertisement the suspension of flights between Cuba and Argentina, arguing the Argentine oil company’s refusal to supply fuel to its planes, in compliance with the sanctions imposed by the United States on the Island.
According to a release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX), Yacimientos Petrolófilos Fiscales SA (YPF) informed Cubana de Aviación of its decision to stop providing fuel to its aircraft.
As a result, Cubana de Aviación “was forced to suspend regular flights between Cuba and Argentina, which had been in operation for 39 years.”
