The recent crash of a leased-Cubana Boeing 737 has caused the media to focus on the age of the aircraft. The Mexican registered airplane crashed on takeoff from Havana on a domestic flight to Holguin. The aircraft involved in the accident was a thirty-nine-year-old Boeing 737-200 that was manufactured in 1979. The accident is under investigation, though the media is focusing on the age of the aircraft as a primary cause. However, the age of the aircraft may not be a…
At 1 p.m. local time, a Boeing 737-200 crashed shortly after taking off from Jose Marti International Airport, the main international airport serving Havana, Cuba. Despite mixed information and unconfirmed accounts of the aircraft involved in the incident, AirlineGeeks can accurately state that the Boeing 737-200 aircraft was operated by…
Cubana de Aviacion, Cuba's flag carrier, received an order from the Cuban National Aviation Authority to ground its An-158 fleet due to recurring technical issues that impact flight safety. The airline operates up to six of the Ukranian aircraft, but the repetition of maintenance issues and unavailability of spare parts…
Back in 2017, AirlineGeeks tackled the topic of U.S. airlines flying to Cuba. It was just after American Airlines had announced a capacity reduction for flights to the Caribbean island nation, and many were unsure as to just how much demand there would be for travel to and from Cuba.…
Alaska Airlines announced that it will end its daily flights between Los Angeles and Havana, Cuba, with its last flight to the Cuban capital planned for Jan. 22, 2018. Alaska was the first carrier to connect the West Coast and Havana with commercial service beginning on Jan. 5, 2017. Andrew…
Before U.S. airlines were first allowed to fly to Cuba last year, very little was known about what the market might entail. Last December, I wrote about the saturation of the market with tens of thousands of weekly seats and whether that would prove sustainable for airlines. Then in April,…
From September 4, 2017, Southwest Airlines will end service to two of the three cities the airline flies to in Cuba. The airline currently serves Varadero and Santa Clara once daily from Ft. Lauderdale and Havana three times daily, twice from Ft. Lauderdale and once from Tampa. Southwest initially began…
Back in December, I wrote an article discussing airlines’ overzealousness to jump into the Cuban aviation market. It was right on the heels of American announcing they would be cutting a couple of their flights from Miami to secondary Cuban cities and downgrading a few others to regional jets. Many…
On Friday, South Florida-based Spirit Airlines announced that they would be pulling service to Cuba, joining fellow ultra-low cost carrier Frontier Airlines and regional carrier Silver Airways in leaving the island nation. Spirit's sole Cuban route between Ft. Lauderdale and Havana will end on May 31. Spirit’s flight to Havana…
Effective on April 22, 2017, Silver Airways, a Fort Lauderdale-based regional carrier, will be ceasing its 22 daily flights to Cuba due to lower than anticipated demand and an inflation of the market. The decision comes just six months after Silver became one of the first airlines to begin selling…
