The Associated Press reports that the U.S. and Cuba are closing in on an agreement to restore regular airline serve between the two countries. Might this mean that we will soon see Charlotte – Havana flights? I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Air service is likely to be restricted to about a dozen or so flights a day on the framework that’s being negotiated, and numerous airlines including American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, and United are expected to apply. It’s just hard to see a Charlotte flight as being near the top of the Department of Transportation’s priority list. Indeed, I kinda doubt that CLT is even near the top of American Airlines priority list in applying for Cuban flights — certainly Miami several times a day, Dallas, New York, plus likely some other Florida cities or Los Angeles would all be higher priorities.

To take it a step further, this may be a case where the US Airways/American Airlines merger hurts Charlotte’s chances of getting a flight. As a standalone carrier, US Airways likely would have submitted a bid for Charlotte – Havana. OK, that probably doesn’t get picked as one of the initial wave of routes, but as time goes and more flights are added, eventually it would get picked, in part because the DOT does value having more carriers fly to a destination. With the merger, it will likely be awhile longer before American even applies for a Charlotte route, and longer still before it gets selected.

Important note: Cuban Americans are concentrated in certain parts of the U.S. (Miami immediately comes to mind), and Charlotte isn’t one of them.