Charter Companies Flying to Cuba Thrive

By: Micah Bacheller

Due to the recent slow re-opening of Cuba to its American counterparts (those Cubans living in the US), charter companies have experienced a boom. One of the re-opening acts was to let Cuban-Americans travel back and forth to Cuba as much as wanted. During the Bush administration and even years before, they could only travel to Cuba a certain amount of times per year. There are only a few charter airplanes that can land on Cuban soil, they will not let the common American airlines land in Cuba. The charter planes need the authorization of the Cuban government to land, so it is being called a "protected monopoly", because only a few select few charters are allowed into Cuba.

The problem to passengers is that the cost of a 45 minute flight from Miami to Cuba is double that of a normal flight to the Bahamas, around 600 dollars. People are fighting for lower fares, saying that charters are abusing their power to fly to Cuba. The charters claim that fuel prices and renting of the charters are really expensive. Even the popular travel website "orbitz" is in on this, and is offering $100 discount on travelers to Cuba, if they sign a petition to give all Americans the freedom to visit Cuba.