WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - The administration on Thursday proposed eight airlines including United Continental Holdings Inc, Delta Air Lines Inc, American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O> and JetBlue Airlines Corp to start nonstop flights from the United States to Havana, Cuba as early as this fall, administration officials said.

The tentative list of airlines, which must still be finalized, also include Alaska Air Group Inc, Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines Co, and Spirit Airlines Inc .

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-propose ... 04777.html

I haven't seen any information on which airline was awarded which route other than United's press release indicating they were awarded EWR and IAH. It appears that EWR is daily and IAH is Saturday only.

"United expects to begin its first flight to Cuba from New York/Newark and Houston later this year, which would make it one of the first U.S. airlines to provide commercial service to Havana – and the first airline to offer U.S.-Havana service from outside Florida."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/celebrand ... 00423.html

Still need more details, but cities are Atlanta, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York City, Orlando and Tampa.

http://www.wesh.com/news/orlando-among- ... a/40398890

Here are the routes:

AS LAX-HAV 1xD
AA MIA-HAV 4xD
AA CLT-HAV 1xD
DL JFK-HAV 1xD
DL ATL-HAV 1xD
DL MIA-HAV 1xD
F9 MIA-HAV 1xD
B6 FLL-HAV 2xMTWTF Su + 1x Sa
B6 JFK-HAV 1xD
B6 MCO-HAV 1xD
WN FLL-HAV 2xD
WN TPA-HAV 1xD
NK FLL-HAV 2xD
UA EWR-HAV 1xD
UA IAH-HAV 1xSa

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/do ... rder_0.pdf

Somewhat surprised about the weekly only service from IAH, while ATL and CLT got a daily flight each, neither of them have as much Cuban population as IAH.

Somewhat shocked that ORD didn't get any.

If the AS application holds on, that would be cool. I'm a little bit surprised that AS is the only one for LAX-HAV, though.

Interesting, but not wholly unexpected. I wonder in a year's time how many of these routes will still be around and what the process would be to change frequency or the US gateway. For example, can AS carry a daily load from LAX year round? Will CLT-HAV stick?

hohd wrote:

Somewhat surprised about the weekly only service from IAH, while ATL and CLT got a daily flight each, neither of them have as much Cuban population as IAH.

ATL and CLT get a daily flight to HAV as they are geographically ideal spots for connections. While the bulk of demand will be in South Florida, none of the airports down there (with only the possible exception of MIA) offers sufficient connections to the rest of the country. ATL (and CLT) should survive on those connecting passengers. I'm thinking a 738 for each?

hohd wrote:

Somewhat surprised about the weekly only service from IAH, while ATL and CLT got a daily flight each, neither of them have as much Cuban population as IAH.

A weekly Sat flight is all UA applied for from IAH. The DOT is not ever going to give airlines more than what they ask for.

I'm surprised UA didn't get the weekly IAD flight they applied to. I figured that it would have a good chance considering it was capital to capital service.

*very* sensible on DOT's part not to hand a monopoly to AA. It seems that AA will now have just 33% of all SoFL-HAV frequencies (let's just assume avg seat count is roughly equal across carriers). Additionally, there will be 2 ULCCs on the route to give the legacies and hybrids some pricing pressure.

Sure beats the fantasy dreams of "let's give AA MIA-HAV 8 out of 20 frequencies".

EMB170 wrote:

ATL and CLT get a daily flight to HAV as they are geographically ideal spots for connections. While the bulk of demand will be in South Florida, none of the airports down there (with only the possible exception of MIA) offers sufficient connections to the rest of the country. ATL (and CLT) should survive on those connecting passengers. I'm thinking a 738 for each?

Exactly. Neither is going to work off O/D alone. In fact, ATL wasn't even DL's first choice in spite of the huge hub there. They listed JFK as their first choice and MIA as their second. ATL was third. I seem to recall they suggested flying ATL with a 757, but I may be wrong on that.

jetskipper wrote:

Somewhat shocked that ORD didn't get any.

Did anyone apply for ORD? I can't quite remember.

OA412 wrote:

Did anyone apply for ORD? I can't quite remember.

UA did for Sat only service.

hohd wrote:

Somewhat surprised about the weekly only service from IAH, while ATL and CLT got a daily flight each, neither of them have as much Cuban population as IAH.

It only got a weekly flight because thats all UA applied for. It may have gotten more had UA applied for more.

When I met with Ed Bastian in Detroit, he said the next Cuba service additions outside of ATL and JFK will likely be DTW and MSP.

I'm also surprised to see WN, DL, or F9 wasn't awarded an MCO flight.

Very excited that TPA will get its first ever WN international service. Is there enough demand to fill all of these daily flights??? That's A TON of capacity to HAV.

daily LAX-HAV is pretty surprising. and i really thought AA will get more MIA-HAV flights i mean that market is hugh!
i really hope that in the future there will be BOS-HAV ,PHL-HAV and ORD-HAV routes.

What rank did UA give the 1x weekly IAH-HAV flight on its application? I guess it was ahead of IAD and ORD?

DOT seems to have favored breadth of coverage over more South Florida flights - perhaps anticipating that South Florida-HAV demand will be a reason to renegotiate the deal with Cuba in the future.

WN got TPA instead of the additional FLL service it prioritized (TPA was WN's highest ranked city after FLL, however). AA got CLT instead of another MIA flight (likewise, CLT was the highest-ranked non-MIA request from AA). B6 got MCO instead of another FLL flight.

threeifbyair wrote:

DOT seems to have favored breadth of coverage over more South Florida flights - perhaps anticipating that South Florida-HAV demand will be a reason to renegotiate the deal with Cuba in the future.

If my count is correct, DOT has already delivered 60% of all frequencies just to South Florida and 70% of frequencies to a single state. That's plenty of capacity to cater for VFR purposes when DOT's objective is the "nationwide general public", not just So-FL folks doing homecoming trips.

If DOT only cared about SoFL, might as well convert all grandfathered charter service into scheduled ones and call it a day.

I wonder if AA will use larger equipment than originally planned... I believe they applied for 10x daily MIA-HAV or something crazy like that and were awarded less than half. Will they now use 763s instead of 738s?

It seems like a lot of attention was paid to ensuring there is a lot of competition in the South Florida-HAV market - 6 flights each to MIA and FLL with 3 carriers at each airport.

Some (arguably most) of this makes sense, and is not that surprising. Some of it is just ridiculous.

It's ridiculous that CLT got anything - it's a major east coast hub, but in the context of AA's network and among competitors it offers essentially nothing in the way of meaningful connectivity in major Cuba-relevant O&D markets that MIA (and other hubs) does/do not already handle. It's also seems pretty unrealistic that LAX will be able to support a daily flight to Cuba - we'll see how that goes.

And, perhaps most dramatically, it is ridiculous that FLL will have as many flights to HAV as MIA - although not at all surprising given the DOT's stated objective to "spread the wealth," despite the fact that the center of gravity for the demand is obviously MIA and not FLL.

It will be interesting to see how this market develops and - more to the point - which of these flights and routes are still in operation, and by which airlines, in a few years from now.

usflyer123 wrote:

i really thought AA will get more MIA-HAV flights i mean that market is hugh!

They simply spread the wealth. Overall, 12 of 20 frequencies are for MIA/FLL-HAV flights. Just 6 of the frequencies are not FL-HAV. Giving AA more than the already allotted 4 frequencies would have been terrible for consumers.

With the connections and vacation packages, I think LAX can support a single 737-800.

commavia wrote:

And, perhaps most dramatically, it is ridiculous that FLL will have as many flights to HAV as MIA .

Might be a tad high, but you are underestimating the population of Weston, Pembroke, Miramar and the other northern communities that can get to FLL
a lot faster with less hassle.

I'm not surprised that the ones which were awarded were all non-stop. A few of the requests had stops in MIA or RSW. I don't think pax would enjoy making stops along the way.

I was suprised by DL getting a flight from MIA. It's not even a hub or focus city. So pax will have to connect at other DL cities to connect to MIA.

I'm skeptical of LAX-HAV. How much demand to Cuba is there from outside Florida/NY? All other allocated flights outside these states go to megahubs.

lavalampluva wrote:

I was suprised by DL getting a flight from MIA. It's not even a hub or focus city. So pax will have to connect at other DL cities to connect to MIA.

More than enough local demand in the market to fill it up. That being said, I wouldn't be shocked if it were timed to connect to/from DL's MIA-MCO flight (MCO-MIA lands pretty early and MIA-MCO is an evening flight designed for connections to MCO-GRU, but could also work for MCO originating traffic going to HAV.)

usflyer123 wrote:

i really thought AA will get more MIA-HAV flights i mean that market is hugh!

Jackman, Hefner, or Grant?

More seriously, 30% of all HAV frequencies were awarded for MIA-HAV service, and almost 60% of the frequencies were awarded for MIA/FLL-HAV service. MIA is closer to much of the population of Cuban descent, but it's not as if FLL is far away, either. And, in all honesty, AA has several widebodies at MIA which could be used for massive capacity to HAV on their four frequencies (although I expect AA's response to high demand would be to jack up fares, rather than increase capacity).

a380787 wrote:

*very* sensible on DOT's part not to hand a monopoly to AA. It seems that AA will now have just 33% of all SoFL-HAV frequencies (let's just assume avg seat count is roughly equal across carriers). Additionally, there will be 2 ULCCs on the route to give the legacies and hybrids some pricing pressure.

Sure beats the fantasy dreams of "let's give AA MIA-HAV 8 out of 20 frequencies".

That's close to what I expected as well -- the MIA/FLL awards were split across a whopping six carriers (and it is rare to find a domestic city pair, even with multiple airport combinations, served non-stop by six different carriers)! I'm actually a little surprised they gave AA as many as four MIA-HAV frequencies; I would have expected one of those to be allotted to DFW-HAV in the interest of geographic diversity. DOT obviously wanted robust competition in the most important U.S.-Cuba market.

flymco753 wrote:

I'm also surprised to see WN, DL, or F9 wasn't awarded an MCO flight.

I expected more than one MCO flight as well, especially given that both B6 & WN offer an excellent array of connecting markets from there. I would say the same about TPA, too.

commavia wrote:

It's ridiculous that CLT got anything - it's a major east coast hub, but in the context of AA's network and among competitors it offers essentially nothing in the way of meaningful connectivity in major Cuba-relevant O&D markets that MIA (and other hubs) does/do not already handle. It's also seems pretty unrealistic that LAX will be able to support a daily flight to Cuba - we'll see how that goes.

I agree, but AA *asked* for CLT and ranked it above DFW. They shouldn't be surprised that DOT gave them CLT in the interest of geographic diversity.

commavia wrote:

And, perhaps most dramatically, it is ridiculous that FLL will have as many flights to HAV as MIA - although not at all surprising given the DOT's stated objective to "spread the wealth," despite the fact that the center of gravity for the demand is obviously MIA and not FLL.

It's not ridiculous at all; outside of the outlandish AA request for 10 MIA-HAV frequencies which had no prayer of being fulfilled, most of the asked-for authorities were from FLL. And it's not as if people in South Florida are unaware of the option of FLL as an alternate (and frequently, a lower-cost one) to MIA. Given that AA is the dominant carrier at MIA, reserving a larger number of frequencies for MIA would have done nothing other than reinforced AA's dominance, which is not necessarily the best outcome for consumers.

It's amazing how AA has the slack to add 18 (approx) mainline flights from MIA to Cuba just like that.

I feel like everyone over-judged the amount of capacity to Cuba, especially HAV. The DOT awarded roughly 14 daily flights from Florida-HAV alone. Lets assume a mix of 738, A32x, & maybe peak season 757 equipment, for an average of about 160 seats per flight. That's 2240 seats per day or roughly 817,600 seats per year just to Havana. Factor in the other 11 daily flights to other cities in Cuba from Florida (Excluding Silver) you're looking at another 642,400 seats. That's roughly 1.46 million seats per year from Florida alone for a Cuban population of roughly 1.2 million in Florida. I get HAV, VRA, SNU & HOG can draw in some vacation package traffic as well as VFR but there is still a lot of seats to fill from Florida alone.

Also I am completely surprised Eastern Air Lines was awarded nothing. They are second behind AA in flights operated to Cuba, they've been doing it for more than a year now and they got nothing, not even the non-HAV routes. Just my two cents.

ScottB wrote:

usflyer123 wrote:

i really thought AA will get more MIA-HAV flights i mean that market is hugh!

It's not ridiculous at all; outside of the outlandish AA request for 10 MIA-HAV frequencies which had no prayer of being fulfilled, most of the asked-for authorities were from FLL. And it's not as if people in South Florida are unaware of the option of FLL as an alternate (and frequently, a lower-cost one) to MIA. Given that AA is the dominant carrier at MIA, reserving a larger number of frequencies for MIA would have done nothing other than reinforced AA's dominance, which is not necessarily the best outcome for consumers.

It is absolutely ridiculous that FLL and MIA got even frequencies at the gross inconvenience of the majority of the people that need to use these routes. It's perfectly cool to give AA only four, but DL and F9 really should have each gotten two MIAHAV flights at the expense of some FLLHAV frequencies.

While many Caribbean communities in South Florida are evenly spread between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, the two that are not at Jamaicans (Broward) and Cubans (Miami-Dade). In much the same way that there is a lot more Jamaica capacity from FLL, there should be a lot more Havana capacity from MIA.

WN, B6, and NK all flying FLL-HAV is a lot of competition for that market. Surprised B6 is the only one to get MCO and AS getting LAX-HAV is interesting as well. Happy to see the spread though.

avi8 wrote:

It's amazing how AA has the slack to add 18 (approx) mainline flights from MIA to Cuba just like that.

Isn't the flight time like 16 minutes or something? Won't require many aircraft.

tortugamon

Can airlines still fly charter flights like they did previously? Or are these the ONLY USA-HAV routes to be flown?

Given that airlines can respond until july 22 does that mean tickets won't be bookable until then, or even later?

Where does Eastern fit into all this? I was thinking, (could be wrong) that they applied for USA-Cuba as well.. Maybe I have bad info. Somebody please clarify or correct me. In a more rhetorical aspect, maybe with the restart of US-Cuba, we will see a new Pan Am restart EYW-HAV..

GatorClark wrote:

Where does Eastern fit into all this? I was thinking, (could be wrong) that they applied for USA-Cuba as well.. Maybe I have bad info. Somebody please clarify or correct me. In a more rhetorical aspect, maybe with the restart of US-Cuba, we will see a new Pan Am restart EYW-HAV..

Eastern does not have authority to operate commercial services yet. The DOT is not going to give limited and in high demand HAV rights to someone in that position.

I believe that the DOT all but said EA would get the non-HAV rights they applied for (MIA-Camaguey, MIA-Holguin, both 3x weekly) when EA receives all the necessary permits for schedule service though.

Someone said....While the bulk of demand will be in South Florida, none of the airports down there (with only the possible exception of MIA) offers sufficient connections to the rest of the country.

Pretty sure B6 has a huge connection base at FLL. As well as NK. Southwest has a decent size opportunity for connecting flights which in the future will also connect on to other International destinations.

ScottB wrote:

usflyer123 wrote:

i really thought AA will get more MIA-HAV flights i mean that market is hugh!

Jackman, Hefner, or Grant?

sorry i meant huge
but im sure they gonna fly a 737 or other narrow bodey jet to HAV, its just a flight of one hour.

With AS having feed to LAX from everywhere on the west coast I don't see any problem filling that HAV flight. Yes, people could also connect through various other cites in FL or TX but AS and their Mileage Plan have a lot of fans on the left coast.

That said, it might turn out that 4x weekly is better on many of the routes that were granted to HAV and especially other, smaller resort markets. Is there the ability for carriers to petition for less frequent service?

Alaska will also have the marketing power of American Airlines to help fill the LAX-HAV flight.

I'm curious to how many of those flights are year round, or just seasonal. I didn't see anything stating which if any. Also I'm sure after a time flights will be tweaked.

lavalampluva wrote:

I'm curious to how many of those flights are year round, or just seasonal. I didn't see anything stating which if any. Also I'm sure after a time flights will be tweaked.

Everything is year-round. HAV isn't a seasonal market in the first place.

So glad to see CLT-HAV! Makes so much sense and will benefit both ends. So much connecting opportunities in CLT!

avi8 wrote:

It's amazing how AA has the slack to add 18 (approx) mainline flights from MIA to Cuba just like that.

Why - with a seriously short flight time MIA-HAV as tortugamon points out - and with a mainline fleet of ~946 aircraft?

Are those slots subject to equipment or are those free?

I wonder if AA could do a B757 shuttle like they do for MIA-MCO.

CLT is a dumb add, anyone traveling to HAV could easily connect through MIA. Also kind of surprised theres no IAD-HAV, did anyone apply for that?

aaflyer777 wrote:

CLT is a dumb add, anyone traveling to HAV could easily connect through MIA. Also kind of surprised theres no IAD-HAV, did anyone apply for that?

UA did apply but I think 1x weekly, which was basically begging DOT not to grant it to them. And I really don't see the point of saturday-only IAH service.

MAH4546 wrote:

It is absolutely ridiculous that FLL and MIA got even frequencies at the gross inconvenience of the majority of the people that need to use these routes. It's perfectly cool to give AA only four, but DL and F9 really should have each gotten two MIAHAV flights at the expense of some FLLHAV frequencies.

While many Caribbean communities in South Florida are evenly spread between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, the two that are not at Jamaicans (Broward) and Cubans (Miami-Dade). In much the same way that there is a lot more Jamaica capacity from FLL, there should be a lot more Havana capacity from MIA.

FLL is what, 8 highway miles from the county line? And once the Concourse A international gates are operational at FLL, that will most likely be the least-hassle option given the routine mess that is MIA CBP.

Either way, if the Cuban American population in the area doesn't find FLL to be a convenient or reasonable option and thus avoids the service there, the carriers at FLL will cut flights and give authorities back to the government.

njdevilsin03 wrote:

Pretty sure B6 has a huge connection base at FLL. As well as NK. Southwest has a decent size opportunity for connecting flights which in the future will also connect on to other International destinations.

Actually, both B6 & WN serve more domestic airports non-stop from FLL than NK, with over 25 each. And the vast majority of the domestic airports served non-stop from MIA are also served from FLL -- and quite a few have service only to FLL, not MIA.

bnatraveler wrote:

AA MIA-HAV 4xD
AA CLT-HAV 1xD

This seems like a nice compromise between the O&D VFR traffic and connectivity to the rest of the network.

bnatraveler wrote:

AS LAX-HAV 1xD

AS seems to have quite a knack for niche leisure markets from LAX. If they can make stuff like LAX-GUC/LTO/MMH/STS/ZLO work, I don't see HAV being much of a problem. In fact, this may even compel AS to consider other LAX-Caribbean services... LAX-GCM/MBJ/NAS/PUJ/SJU, anyone?

bnatraveler wrote:

B6 FLL-HAV 2xMTWTF Su + 1x Sa
B6 JFK-HAV 1xD
B6 MCO-HAV 1xD

I can see all of these services doing extremely well.

bnatraveler wrote:

DL JFK-HAV 1xD
DL ATL-HAV 1xD
DL MIA-HAV 1xD

Will be very interesting to see how DL does on the MIA-HAV route. Given their track record when it comes to p2p routes out of South Florida, I have my doubts...

bnatraveler wrote:

F9 MIA-HAV 1xD

Will be very interesting to see how F9 does on the MIA-HAV route as well. They haven't been able to do much in the South Florida market either...

bnatraveler wrote:

NK FLL-HAV 2xD

Now this I can see doing well.

bnatraveler wrote:

UA EWR-HAV 1xD
UA IAH-HAV 1xSa

IIRC UA got everything it asked for. They seem to have a very intelligent, professional, respectful approach when it comes to these applications.

bnatraveler wrote:

WN FLL-HAV 2xD
WN TPA-HAV 1xD

So FLL and TPA will now both be official international gateways for WN now (SJU flights are fully domestic and while FLL-NAS starts August 7th, the pre-cleared arrivals from NAS typically will not need to use FIS at FLL). I wonder if WN is considering stuff like TPA-CUN?

SurfandSnow wrote:

If they can make stuff like LAX-GUC/LTO/MMH/STS/ZLO work, I don't see HAV being much of a problem. In fact, this may even compel AS to consider other LAX-Caribbean services... LAX-GCM/MBJ/NAS/PUJ/SJU, anyone?

I'm not sure the comparison with routes which are served on regional aircraft or sub-daily mainline markets is all that apt, to be honest. It will be a challenge, at least initially, to draw much tourist traffic given that the restrictions on tourism to Cuba still remain in place and the number of available hotel rooms won't change overnight.

AS can't operate LAX-SJU/PUJ with its current fleet.

SurfandSnow wrote:

Will be very interesting to see how DL does on the MIA-HAV route. Given their track record when it comes to p2p routes out of South Florida, I have my doubts...

DL can likely bolster MIA-HAV with connecting or one-stop traffic from LGA/JFK as well as the other hubs with non-stops to MIA.