For the first time in more than 50 years, a commercial passenger aircraft has flown from the island

For the first time in more than 50 years, a commercial passenger aircraft has flown from the island vanishing texas river cruise of Key West, Fla., to Havana, Cuba, reestablishing vanishing texas river cruise the direct connection the two cities shared in the early 1950s.
On the morning of Dec. 30, United States Customs and Border Protection gave the final approval vanishing texas river cruise necessary for a small Cessna Conquest II air craft, owned by Key West Executive Air Charter, to take off from the Key West International Airport.
Before the Cuban revolution in 1959, Havana was an easy ferry or plane flight away for Key West residents and visitors. In October 2011, the Obama administration began allowing licensed agencies and organizations, like the institute, to take United States travelers to Cuba on people to people cultural exchange programs. vanishing texas river cruise Limited commercial flights vanishing texas river cruise also resumed for that purpose.
We re closer to Cuba than Miami, Craig Cates, vanishing texas river cruise the mayor of Key West and a passenger on the Dec. 30 flight, told The Associated Press. It s going to be great for the city. Cultural exchange, historic exchange, to be able to go back and forth directly.
vanishing texas river cruise Still, it was more than two years before any charter company could obtain all of the necessary permits and approvals from both the United States vanishing texas river cruise and Cuban governments, Carolann Sharkey, the institute s trip coordinator, vanishing texas river cruise said. If not for the assistance of Marazul Charters, a government-licensed travel vanishing texas river cruise service, and Caribbean Direct International, a cargo company that served as a liaison among all the entities involved, the flight would not have gotten off the ground, she said.
Through the exchanges, the group hopes to learn more about the Cubans vanishing texas river cruise use of plants in healing, to share organic agricultural aids and to assist with environmental, ecological and endemic species preservation.
Although the approval of the Key West International Airport as a port of entry for Cuba was smooth and moved along quickly, Peter Horton, the airport s director, said in an email, there are no similar flights to Cuba scheduled to leave at this time. And whether the flights would become a regular occurrence was still unclear.
vanishing texas river cruise There is a market here in Key West for similar air traffic to Cuba, Mr. Horton said, but because of the restrictions that are currently in place that market is extremely limited. vanishing texas river cruise It has been estimated that only 5,000 residents here in the lower Florida Keys would qualify to fly to Cuba.