The United States announced this week that it would impose sanctions on companies that operate irregular flights or charter flights from Cuba to Nicaragua. But what is this all about? We’ll explain it to you by answering three questions.
What does the State Department notice consist of?
The State Department said that the owners, officials or executives of the airlines that charter their planes for the route between Cuba and Nicaragua, which often have stopovers in countries such as the Dominican Republic, where several of these planes land, will have their visas revoked have their headquarters.
What is this about? Let us remember that in November 2021, Nicaragua abolished visa requirements for Cubans and thousands took this opportunity to fly to Managua and make the overland journey to the southern border of the United States.
In other words, President Joe Biden’s administration recognizes that these flights are something of a first link in the immigration chain that has caused chaos at the United States’ border with Mexico.
So right now, many of these executives are probably wondering what they should do: whether they should keep the visa to travel to the United States or whether they should run a million-dollar business. And these millionaires don’t do it for fun. Keep in mind that in high season, Cubans had to pay up to $4,000 for a ticket from Havana to Managua.
Who is affected by the measure?
This obviously concerns those behind this deal, but also many Cubans who had already paid for their tickets and arrived, for example, at the airports in Havana or Holguín to find that these flights had been canceled.
Many of these Cubans will sell absolutely anything to make this trip, but the prices are so expensive that most of these tickets are sold right here in South Florida, where their relatives live.
THE ROLE OF TRAVEL AGENTS
Most of these flights are organized from South Florida. Travel agencies sell tickets and then contract the services of airlines, which are only responsible for chartering their aircraft.
This began in 2021. One of the first airlines to cover the route was Venezuelan state-owned Conviasa. The airline was already sanctioned by the US during the time of former President Donald Trump, but that did not stop it from continuing to offer these flights.
Many have rightly said that this is a big deal for the three allied regimes. Nicaragua charges fees for every plane that lands on its runways. Venezuela provides its aircraft and the Cuban regime used all of this as an escape valve after the historic July 11 protests on the island.
In addition to what each Cuban in the United States represents, remittances are one of the main incomes of the national economy.
Many fear that if most charter companies go out of business, the few remaining will raise the prices of these tickets even further. But what actual impact would this measure have? Will it stop the exodus of Cubans? We will see.