Frontier Airlines received tentative approval Thursday from the U.S. Department of Transportation for once daily round-trip service between Miami and Havana.
Spokesman Jim Faulkner said the company was disappointed it didn’t receive approval for nonstop service between Denver and Cuba’s capital.
The Denver business, political and civic community went above and beyond in supporting us — especially Mayor Hancock and the leadership at Denver International Airport,” he said in an e-mail. “We are evaluating the DOT’s recommendations and have not made a decision regarding the filing of an objection.”
In total, eight U.S. airlines won tentative approval for flights from 10 American cities to Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport. The 20 round-trip daily flights between the U.S. and Cuba’s capital will begin as early as this fall, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The decision advances President Barack Obama’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba. In February, that would allow commercial air traffic to resume to the island. The last scheduled air service from the U.S. to the communist nation was more than 50 years ago.
The U.S. cities are: Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; Los Angeles; Newark, New Jersey; New York; and four in Florida — Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa.
The airlines are Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, and United. They will not be authorized to sell flight tickets to Havana until the Transportation Department’s decision is final.
Frontier, the Denver-based ultra-low-cost carrier, had applied for a daily nonstop flight between Denver and Havana, and three additional daily flights between Miami and Havana.
The decision won’t be final until later this summer, Foxx said, in order to provide a 30-day public comment period. Last month, the to begin service as early as this fall to other Cuban cities.
In that notice, Frontier received permission to fly from Chicago and Philadelphia to Camaguey, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba. The first of those five flights, Chicago-Santiago de Cuba, is scheduled to start Oct. 27. The others will be phased in mid-December and early January.
Although most Americans still cannot legally visit Cuba, the Obama administration has eased rules to the point where travelers are now free to design their own “people-to-people” cultural exchange tours with little oversight. Airlines still need to record — and keep for five years — the official reason why someone travels to Cuba, so reservation systems have been revamped to allow passengers to select . They include family visits, official business, educational or religious activities.
U.S. citizens’ interest in visiting Cuba has swelled since relations between the two nations started to thaw in December 2014. Nearly 160,000 U.S. leisure travelers flew to Cuba last year, along with hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans visiting family.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
