The new aviation deal with Cuba limits U.S. air lines to 20 scheduled flights a day to Havana. Airline interest was much stronger than that though, with various U.S. carriers asking to run about 60 flights a day. Today, the Department of Transportation announced the winners, which included American Airline’s request for a flight a day from Charlotte to Havana. In total, the DOT awarded eight airlines the flights to Havana:
Alaska Airlines: Los Angeles daily
American Airlines: Miami four times daily, Charlotte daily
Delta Air Lines: Atlanta daily, Miami daily, New York (JFK) daily
Frontier Airlines: Miami daily
JetBlue Airways: Fort Lauderdale twice daily (except once on Saturdays), New York (JFK) daily, Orlando daily
Southwest Airlines: Fort Lauderdale twice daily, Tampa daily
Spirit Airlines: Fort Lauderdale twice daily
United Airlines: Newark once daily; Houston once weekly (Saturdays)
Flights are to start later this year, subject to appeals of the roue awards.
Analysis: This would be called “spreading the wealth” by DOT. The Havana market will skew heavily towards Florida in general and south Florida (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale) in particular. Doubt that with a free market, you’d end up with a distribution of flights looking anything like this. For example, Charlotte was only American’s number eight requested route, after seven Miami flights.