When travel to Cuba for the majority of the US population finally became possible again last year, airlines pounced in order to win the rights for certain markets. Airlines hoped that the allure of Cuba would entice droves of travelers to descend on the island, filling their planes with high fares. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Per One Mile at a Time, as of May 3rd, jetBlue will be cutting capacity on all six of its US-Cuba routes:
- Havana to Ft. Lauderdale, New York-JFK, and Orlando will be downgauged from an Airbus A321 to an Airbus A320
- Ft. Lauderdale to Camagüey, HolguÃn, and Santa Clara will be downgauged from an Airbus A320 to an Embraer E190
jetBlue’s current US-Cuba routes. Map courtesy of gcmap.com
These downgauges will result in a loss of 700 jetBlue seats per day in the US-Cuba market (if my math is correct, 7 flights a day, 50 seat loss per flight each way). jetBlue can’t be excited that these routes can’t stimulate demand, especially in Florida, where the majority of Cuban-Americans live.
I’m not surprised about the cuts, and jetBlue isn’t even the first to do so, as American announced cuts back in November. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more airlines (*cough* Alaska’s LAX-HAV route *cough*) get reduced or cut.
(READ MORE: First West Coast flight to Cuba takes off)
Anyone traveled to Cuba yet? How was the experience? Let us know below!
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after the initial frenzy died down people figured out it was not worth going to Cuba?
In my opinion, all the requirements around traveling to Cuba are still off-putting to most people. I am certainly interested in visiting the country, but since I’ve literally never been to any of the other Caribbean islands, there are dozens of vacation options that I see as 10x easier than Cuba.
Not enough libbies want to support their comrades I suppose. That’s a shame, as they should see first hand what the real results of utopian, idealistic socialist policies are.
Thanks for the unnecessary politicization!
I believe the issue is the layover. Not everyone wants to spend 10 hours, or so, in FLL!