Sep 2, 2016 - News

So you want to fly Charlotte to Cuba? Here’s the deal

Katie Levans

This week, a U.S. commercial flight landed in Cuba for the first time in 55 years.

The JetBlue flight from Ft. Lauderdale is part of the Obama Administration’s plan to restore relations with the communist-run island 90 miles south of Florida.

So far, the government has approved 10 airlines for travel to Cuba from 12 U.S. cities, including drumroll, please Charlotte.

U.S. flights to nine Cuban cities were approved earlier this year, but the tentative announcement about which airlines would be awarded routes into the island’s capital city of Havana was just finalized on Wednesday.

Charlotte was awarded a daily direct flight to Havana by way of American Airlines. [standing ovation]

It’s a monumental score for the city when you consider that only 20 direct flights to Havana were awarded across the country and 14 will depart out of Florida.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t have earned the designation on our own. In fact, Ted Reed points out in Forbes that Charlotte is a logical Havana route recipient due to the fact that it is American Airlines’ second-biggest hub servicing 70 destinations not served from its largest Latin American hub, Miami.

But it also probably doesn’t hurt that former Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx is President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation. Keep fighting the Queen City good fight up there in DC, Mr. Secretary.

Flights from Charlotte to Cuba will begin next week.

Everyone is rightfully hyped about Charlotte’s new direct flight to Havana, but American hasn’t announced an official date for that first nonstop trip. In the meantime, you can fly from Charlotte to other Cuban cities with a layover in Miami as early as next week.

There are two major caveats to this travel.

Tourism travel to Cuba is still banned. In order to travel to Cuba, passengers must qualify for one of 12 travel categories, including official government affairs, journalistic activity, professional research, education, religious activities, family visits and humanitarian projects. See all categories here.
You can’t fly direct yet. So if you want to get on one of the first flights out of Charlotte next week, you’ll have a connection in the 305.

Technically, the first American Airlines Cuban-bound flights out of Charlotte will depart Tuesday, September 6 with service to Cienfuegos (CFG) and Holguín (HOG).

They do, however, have pretty hefty and inconvenient overnight layovers because American’s Miami-to-Cuba service doesn’t really start until Wednesday, September 7. Tickets start around $706.

American will add Charlotte service to Camagüey (CMW) and Santa Clara (SNU) on September 8 and Veradero (VRA) on September 10. American’s direct service from Charlotte to Havana should begin later this year.

After September 7, you could leave Charlotte at 7 a.m., connect in Miami and be in Cuba by noon.

Prior to this week’s new commercial flights, it was much more complicated (and expensive) for American citizens to get to Cuba. You could either fly in through a third country or charter an expensive flight. Flying through Canada, for example, was one former workaround for American citizens.