CubaPLUS Magazine

Southwest, U.S. biggest domestic airline, plans to offer six daily roundtrips between two Florida gateways and three Cuban cities by the end of 2016. At least that said Steve Goldberg, vice president of ground operations for the American carrier that just landed in Havana with a Boeing 737, bringing 156 passengers aboard.

Among those was the president of the Council and CEO of Southwest, Gary Kelly, who hailed the success of the friendly flight and expressed the pride of his employees and the company for making this flight possible.

A year ago we had no plans to begin service to Cuba", admitted Kelly. &It is a tribute to everyone involved that within a year we have been able to work together to now provide service and especially here to Havana."

He specified that they are very happy with the six frequencies to fly to Cuba and as the differences between the two countries are solved, will be willing to grow in trips to this archipelago.

I’m grateful to our more than 53,000 Southwest employees and everyone who’s been part of our Southwest family during the past 45 years who built our airline to this moment in history -- we now operate flights from 100 cities across nine countries," Kelly said.

Hector Sardinas, top coordinator of the Jose Marti International Airport, welcomed the US visitors and outlined the commercial links that can rise up starting from the agreements on airline flights between Cuba and the US signed in February 2016.

Southwest now complete routes from Fort Lauderdale and Tampa (daily) with three flights to Havana, two to the resort of Varadero and soon they will travel to the central province of Villa Clara.The director of business development for Southwest, Manuel de Oyarzabal, specified their devices carrying capacity of 143 and 178 passengers, in the Boeing 737-700 and 737-800, respectively.

They recalled that this is the largest carrier in the U.S. for domestic flights, and began operations on June 18, 1971 with three planes to three cities, when it already exceeds the 100 Boeing, and now reaches 100 places.

American Airline was the first U.S. company to fly to Havana at the end of last November, among others for a plan of eight companies air carriers toward the capital from the United States. Five other carriers –Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United – have already launched their allotted flights to Havana. Additional flights have been approved to smaller Cuban cities.