is
Cuba's domestic and international
Flag Carrier Airline . Its base is the
José Martí International Airport in
Havana . The company was founded on October 8th, 1929. It is one of the first ones opening the era of commercial flights. From the very beginnings it has been characterized by the constant improvement of its services. It is a founder and member of the International Association of Air Transportation (IATA), the International Association of Aeronautical Telecommunications (SITA) and of the International Association of Latin American Air Transportation (AITAL).
Nowadays, Cubana de Aviación S.A is the leading airline of Cuba. It is in charge of passengers' transportation, cargo and mail transportation. It has 32 representatives in other countries and 13 offices all over Cuba.
Cubana was established on
8 October 1929 as Compañía Cubana Nacional de Aviación Curtiss, showing its association with the
Curtiss plane-making company. It started operations in
1930 . In
1932 ,
American airline
Pan Am bought out Cubana, and the word Curtiss was omitted. In
1944 the name of the airline was changed again to Compania Cubana de Avacion. In 1945 a majority share in the airline was sold to Cuban investors, with PanAm retaining a 42% stake. The first international flight was in
1946 to
Miami using
DC-3 airplanes. The Miami route, because of its political and economical significance, would later prove to be an important part of Cubana's history. In June
1948 a transatlantic service was started from Havana to
Madrid . In
1954 , the air company became fully Cuban owned.
When
Fidel Castro came into power, the airline was nationalised and stopped all
United States routes, including the one to
Miami International Airport . In
1959 the airline was nationalised and changed its name to Empresa Consolidada Cubana de Aviación, but the airline was still popularly known just as Cubana. With the
US Embargo , it had to turn to the
Soviet Union to get its airplanes, and the first one to be obtained was the
Ilyushin Il-14 , just after the embargo began.
Ilyushin Il-18 ,
Antonov An-12 and
Antonov An-24 soon followed. In
1974 , with the arrival of the
Ilyushin Il-62 , Cubana was able to start services to Europe with flights to
Barajas International Airport in
Madrid .
During the
1980s , Cubana was one of a group of airlines waiting for a lifting of the US embargo since Miami is a city with a large Cuban community and also a potential money maker. This, however, did not happen, and Cubana is still eagerly awaiting this.
Upon the
Collapse Of The Soviet Union in
1991 , Cubana was given license to buy jetliners from elsewhere, but still not those built in the United States. They acquired
Airbus A320 equipment and leased a
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 from
French airline
AOM . That plane was lost in a crash at
Guatemala City . Cubana also acquired
Fokker F27 aircraft to reinforce its fleet.
Cubana's Soviet-built aircraft began to suffer from old age, and the fact that spare parts for those planes were hard to find, and partly because of that it suffered a series of fatal accidents during the
1990s . Cubana is trying to improve its image and purchase new Airbus jets. The airline is wholly owned by Corporacion Cubana de Aviacion.
On
November 1 ,
1958 a
Vickers Viscount Cubana en route from Miami to
Varadero to Havana was hijacked by Cuban militants. The hijackers were trying to land at Sierra Cristal in Eastern Cuba to deliver weapons to Raul Castro's communist rebels. As night approached, eventually the plane ran out of fuel and tried an emergency landing at the Preston sugar mill, it did not make it and instead landed in the ocean and broke apart killing most passengers and crew, there were three or four survivors.
On
6 October ,
1976 ,
Terrorist Sabotage brought down
Cubana Flight 455 , a
Douglas DC-8 departing from
Barbados to Cuba. Two bombs were put on by a terrorist organization of a CIA-linked Cuban exile,
Luis Posada Carriles , killing all 73 people on board. Among the dead were all the 24 young members of the
Fencing team that had just obtained all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship.
On
July 11 1995 , a Cubana de Aviación
Antonov An-24 crashed into the
Caribbean off the southeastern coast of
Cuba killing 44 people.
On
April 1 2003 , an Antonov An-24 of Cubana was
Forced To Fly to
Key West, Florida by a man with
Hand Grenade s. The plane had to stop in Havana for refueling. In Havana, some of the 46 passengers in the plane escaped. The
FBI awaited the plane at Key West.
Cubana operates the following services (at March
2006 ):
- DOSMESTIC scheduled destinations: Baracoa , Bayamo , Camagüey , Cayo Largo , Ciego De Ávila , Cienfuegos , Guantanamo , Havana , Holguín , Manzanillo , Moa , Nueva Gerona , Santa Clara , Santiago De Cuba , Varadero and Victoria De Las Tunas .
- INTERNATIONAL scheduled destinations: Barbados , Bogotá , Buenos Aires , Cancún , Caracas , Copenhagen , Fort-de-France , Guatemala City , Kingston , Las Palmas- Gran Canaria , London , Madrid , Mexico City , Milan , Montego Bay , Montréal , Moscow , Nassau , Panama City , Paris , Pointe-à-Pitre , Rome , San José , Santo Domingo , São Paulo , and Toronto .
Aerocaribbean ,
Aeroflot ,
Aeropostal ,
Air Europa ,
Air Jamaica ,
Blue Panorama ,
Copa Airlines
The Cubana fleet consists of the following aircraft (at March 2006):
It is expecting 3 new
Tupolev Tu-204-100 aircraft (one in a freighter version). Cubana recently took delivery of the two Ilyushin Il-96 jet which was on display at MAKS 2005 airshow in Moscow, Russia in August 2005.
- Cubana's planes often carry Cuba's national sports teams, even to United States territories.
- In 1983 , Cubana was prohibited from using United States air-space to operate their flights to Canada, after two of their jets overflew close to American military facilities during two consecutive days. Cubana was given US overflight permission in 1998 in a Bilateral Agreement.
- Cubana also operates an air charter division.
- Cubana is the only known major Latin American airline to use Russian built airplanes (in the days of Cold war Aeronica used the planes), and it is the only Latin American airline with an established route to Moscow .
- In '' The Godfather Part II '' when Michael Corleone abandons Havana he boards a Cubana plane.
- Cubana's planes are often chartered by president Fidel Castro for official trips.
The images of the Cubana de Aviacion timetables are used with permission and as courtesy of
Bjorn Larsson and David Zekria, and are part of their personal collections .
