Ticket sales open for Los Angeles-Cuba flights
Nonstop to Cuba? Si! A Long Beach company is marketing weekly nonstop flights to Havana (HAV) from Los Angeles (LAX) that will begin June 30. Because of U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba, most customers will probably be Cuban Americans who have family there. But that could soon change.
“It’s been really, really busy,” said Michael Zuccato, general manager of Cuba Travel Services Inc., which opened ticket sales Tuesday.
The cost: Round-trip coach fares for the charter flights, on a Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 that can carry 150 passengers, are $889 per adult, $779 for children under age 12 and $89 for infants, plus tax, Zuccato said. First class costs $1,395 per adult or child and $698 for infants, plus tax.
How to buy tickets: You must call Cuba Travel Services, (800) 963-2822, or a travel agency authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department to sell trips to Cuba. You cannot buy tickets online, Zuccato said.
The schedule: Zuccato said the plane will leave LAX at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and arrive in Havana at 7:15 p.m. It will leave Havana at 8:25 p.m. the same day and arrive in Los Angeles at 10:45 p.m. Flight time is less than five and half hours.
Who can go: Most Americans cannot legally visit the communist-ruled island nation under U.S. rules that forbid spending money there.
Exceptions include Cuban Americans with relatives in Cuba and certain Americans engaged in pursuits such as journalism, education, business or charitable work. The rules are complicated. For a useful summary, check the country profile of Cuba on the State Department’s travel website.
An unknown number of Americans illegally visit Cuba every year by traveling through a third country such as Mexico or Canada.
In April, the Obama administration said it would lift all restrictions on the frequency of visits to family members in Cuba. A bill pending in Congress would end the travel ban for all Americans.
The big picture: Cuba Travel Services began offering Los Angeles-Havana flights in 2000 but suspended them in 2004 after the Bush administration tightened restrictions on travel to Cuba, which “had a big impact on our business,” Zuccato said.
More than 40,000 Cuban Americans are estimated to live in Los Angeles County. But because Cuba Travel’s service is the only one of its kind on the West Coast, Zuccato said, it will draw customers from a wider area.
— Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor
[Photo: Cubans and tourists flock to a market in Havana. Credit: Lianne Milton / For The Times]
6 Comments on “Ticket sales open for Los Angeles-Cuba flights”
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June 5th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
…if someone with dual citizenship (American/…) can visit legally? If I then travel with my wife who is the dual citizen would I be exempt since I wouldn’t technically be spending any money?
June 5th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Let’s contact our politicians to allow free travel to Cuba. This so called land of the free is the only country that doesn’t allow travel to Cuba.
Most of the right wing Cuban immigrants are now supportive of open travel to Cuba. Castro doesn’t have the most open politics but everyone eats and gets free health care-more than the U.S. can say.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Let’s allow U.S. citizens to travel free like our constitution implies.
Castro has a slightly repressive government but everyone eats and get’s free healthcare- more than the U.S. provides.
The repression in China is legendary. Israel commits war crimes against innocent Gaza children.We give both these countries favored status. Explain the logic?
June 11th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Johnfromojai:
Are you serious? Slightly repressive? Everyone eats and gets free healthcare? Do you live in the twilight zone?
Tell all those lies to Oscar Elias Biscet or the other hundreds of political dissidents who are in jail.
Tell that to the 4 year old who can’t have milk bc the ration cards stop for that at age 2.
Tell that to the thousands who earn 15 dollars a month.
Get a clue.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Just wondering when Canada became a third world country.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Johnfromojai:
Obviously you know nothing about Cuba and what has been happening in that country. My uncle has to have us send him strips to check his sugar with the ultra one touch that we sent him. There ’s your free healthcare! It’s free because it’s not available!