Let’s air it for Cuba
First commercial US flight in 55 years
The skies just got friendly again between the United States and Cuba.
On the first commercial flight between the Cold War enemies in more than 50 years, passengers clapped and waved Cuban flags as the plane took off from Ft. Lauderdale on Wednesday while a live band played salsa music and water cannons blasted streams into the air.
Lazaro Chavez, a 49-year-old pharmacist from Miami, said he was taking the flight for two reasons: “One, I am going to see my family. Two, I want to be on this historic flight.”
An hour later, Jet Blue Flight 387 touched down in Santa Clara — a city renowned for its monument to Che Guevara — and the applause turned to loud cheers.
Leanne Spencer, a wedding planner from Salt Lake City, called the trip “pretty remark- able” and said she felt lucky to have scored tickets for her and her daughter.
“We wanted to do something historical,” she told the Miami Herald. “We were checking in at the same time as [a young woman with two small children] and she was in tears.”
The flight opens a new era of US-Cuba travel, with eight US airlines authorized to take passengers.
Delta said it would launch daily service Dec. 1 from JFK, Atlanta and Miami, “subject to Cuban regulatory approval.”
The countries have been hostile for more than five decades, since Fidel Castro ousted US-- backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Secretary of State John Kerry mentioned on Twitter that the last US commercial flight was in 1961 — before Cuba banned incoming flights during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
José Ramón Cabañas, the Cuban ambassador to the US, said reaching a commercial flight agreement required months of negotiations between US transportation and security officials and their counterparts in Cuba.
“Today is another historic day,” he said. “And we have been saying that phrase many times during the last months.”
Domenic Santana, a retired nightclub owner from New York City who sat in seat 1A, said the opening inspired him to return to his native Cuba and get reacquainted with the country he left as a child.
“It’s about time I’m going back,” he said.