Havana/While the Tourism in Cuba Catastrophic numbers continue to accumulate in the arrival of travelers, the airlines traveling to the island begin to see their finances resentful due to empty flights and low demand. This week United Airlines, the only American company that connects Havana with Houston (Texas), announced that it will suspend its flights from September 2 and at least until the summer of 2026.
According to the Specialized Press In aviation, the airline will make use of the seasonal flexibility granted by the Department of Transportation – by “fluctuations” in the number of travelers and low demand for flight restrictions between the two countries – to stop the route until the end of the next winter season. He also requested an exemption to maintain the right on the connection even if he does not restart flights next summer.
United is the only American company that connects the island with a destination other than Miami. The transport department granted him the right on the route in 2016 and two years later allowed him to add frequencies. Currently, the company manages seven weekly frequencies between Houston and Havana with capacity for 166 passengers in each.
The weekly charter flights that maintains between Jacksonville and the Guantanamo Naval Base will continue to work without changes
However, the weekly charter flights that maintains between Jacksonville and the Naval Base of Guantanamo will continue to work without changes, said the specialized press.
United is not the first American company that is forced to suspend flights to the island. At the beginning of June American Airlines, with the highest number of connections between the two countries, he also requested the Department of Transportation decrease the amount of routes To the island this summer, including all its connections with Santiago de Cuba. The reason, he presented then, is the little demand of trips to the country during the summer, added to the strict Washington’s policies to Havana.
The company’s application was made two days after Donald Trump’s administration proclaimed the restriction of most visa for Cubans who wish to enter the US. company. Miami’s routes to Havana would already be the most affected by the cuts and, at the request of the airline itself, the second could disappear over the next months.
In the case of the capital, American Airlines hoped to modify the permission granted last March by Washington to cut up to a maximum of three daily frequencies that it has from Thursday to Sunday, and on Mondays; and up to four on Tuesdays and Wednesday.
Cubans residing abroad – many from the USA -, although well below Canadian tourists, are the second largest group of travelers who arrive annually to the island. However, as in the rest of the countries that broadcast tourists to the island, interest in Cuba has diminished in recent years –Until June the million had not been reached-. In the sixth month of this year only 120,423 Cubans residing abroad and 67,044 Americans, 77.6% and 20% less than in the same 2024 period arrived in the country.
The routes from other countries also face the debacle of the sector. This July the Colombian airline Avianca advertisement that would leave its route between Bogotá and Havana from next August 31, just before the high season of tourism. The cause is the same that has led other operators to give up traveling to Cuba: the low flight occupation.
