Some of the main avenues of legal exit from Cuba are put on hold. This Tuesday, the company Copa Airlineswhich covers the Havana-Managua route through Panama, announced a halt in the sale of these tickets, the same day that the Colombian consulate in Cuba reported that it will not accept new applications for transit visas until it processes the ones it has accumulated due to the recent increase in demand.
Furthermore, as found 14ymedio, The Venezuelan airline Conviasa, which does have several scheduled flights between Havana and Managua in February, is only offering them “rescheduled,” that is, for customers who were unable to travel due to restrictions due to the covid pandemic.
At the insistence of excited customers who intended to buy a ticket for the first time to Managua, an employee of the sales offices finally replied: “There is no prospect of them selling again.”
The consulate warned on January 24 that it was “receiving a number of requests for visa procedures above its usual processing capacity”
The Colombian diplomatic headquarters clarified that the appointment requests that were made before February 11 will continue their course and will also continue to manage non-transit visas as well as other procedures.
The consulate warned on January 24 that it was “receiving a number of applications for visa procedures above its usual capacity processing”.
The suspension of transit permits has, however, been welcomed by travelers who are in the process of visiting Colombia, since now the schedule of consular appointments has been readjusted and the waiting times for the visa interview have been reduced. shortened.
Colombia requires Cubans this document that allows mobility in airports to continue towards another country, in many recent cases the destination is Nicaragua, since in November the country governed by Daniel Ortega, a political ally of Havana, authorized citizens of the Island to enter without the need for a visa.
This was a route recently followed by the journalist Yailén Insúa Alarcón, former director of Cuban Television, and her husband, Boris Luis Ramos Salgado, who have been stranded in Bogotá after Nicaragua rejected their entry, in this case, which is not what usual, for alleged political reasons.
One of the main airlines that keep the island connected with Nicaragua, the Panamanian Copa Airlines, announced the suspension of its flights due to the avalanche of requests. According to the company’s response, requested by a Cuban news portal, the decision is due to “the number of flights approved by Cuba and the high demand of passengers wanting to travel on the route.”
“We do not know how long this measure will last. We can only inform you that the direct purchase of tickets from Cuba to other Central American countries is totally paralyzed”
The airline confirms that this is not a ban or elimination of the routes and that the suspension is temporary, although it could not confirm a date of restoration. “We do not know how long this measure will last. We can only inform you that the direct purchase of tickets from Cuba to other Central American countries is totally paralyzed,” a Copa worker in Panama told local media.
In his reply to Cuban Directory, the airline asks those interested to be “aware of the official announcements about it of the opening of new frequencies”.
The options are thus very limited for Cubans to leave the Island, since the rest of the airlines that allow the route to be covered through multiple stops (Cayman Airways, Aeroméxico or Taca) include some stop in the US, which does not allow this type of transit to Cubans.
In the Facebook groups of Cubans who want to fly to the Nicaraguan capital, however, ticket offers proliferate, sometimes at exorbitant prices and which turn out to be, in many cases, scams.
At the end of November, as soon as Managua announced the end of visa requirements for Cubans, the offices of Copa and Conviasa on the island became a hotbed of people interested in leaving the island taking advantage of the circumstance, in the midst of a political, economic, social and human rights crisis that has escalated after the trigger of the pandemic.
At that time, the headquarters of these airlines had not yet put the tickets on sale, but the citizens crowded demanding information about the start of operations, causing some altercations in which the Police had to intervene.
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