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                      US, Cuba to Allow 110 Daily Flights

   by Ken Bredemeier

   The United States and Cuba are signing a deal Tuesday that will allow
   U.S. commercial airlines to make up to 110 daily flights to the
   communist island, the most significant new business link between the
   two countries since the end of their five-decade Cold War-era
   hostilities.

   U.S. transportation chief Anthony Foxx is headed to Havana to close the
   deal, which would allow for 20 flights a day to the Cuban capital, in
   addition to the current 10 to 15 charter flights. The remainder of the
   new flights, which could start later this year, would carry travelers
   to nine other Cuban cities, where there is far less demand than for
   flights to Havana.

   Several U.S. carriers say they plan to add flights to Cuba as soon as
   details on flight routes can be worked out, but Cuban carriers will
   still have to obtain their own licenses from U.S. authorities.

   ''President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro restored
   diplomatic ties between the two countries in late 2014. They
   subsequently opened embassies in Havana and Washington and now are
   moving to improve business links, even as a U.S. trade embargo remains
   in place.

   A U.S. State Department transportation official, Thomas Engle, said the
   latest agreement "provides for a very important, sizeable increase in
   travel between the two countries, and that reinforces" Obama's goal to
   improve relations with Cuba.

   Under the airline agreement, U.S. visitors would still have to meet one
   of the 12 qualifying reasons to go to Cuba, such as traveling as part
   of an educational tour or arranging a professional meeting. But the
   distinction between banned tourism and travel for other reasons has
   blurred significantly.

   Regular commercial flights between the U.S. and Cuba ended 53 years
   ago, but in recent years charter flights have accommodated a growing
   number of American visitors. Last year, about 160,000 Americans made
   the short trip to Cuba, located 145 kilometers off the southeastern
   U.S. state of Florida, home to thousands of Cuban-born immigrants and
   their families who left their homeland after revolutionary Fidel Castro
   seized control in 1959. Castro subsequently nationalized millions of
   dollars worth of U.S. corporate and private property in Cuba.

   The airline deal comes a day after the U.S. approved the construction
   of the first American factory on the island since the restoration of
   diplomatic relations, a farm tractor assembly operation that plans to
   hire Cuban workers.

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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-cuba-to-allow-110-daily-flights/3193082.html