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Air Transat aims to get all of its customers out of Cuba by next Wednesday, amid calls for Canadians to avoid delays leaving the country.
Flights from Canada to Cuba have suddenly shut down in recent daysafter Cuban authorities made it known that fuel shortages would prevent aircraft from being refueled on the island.
On Wednesday, the Canadian federal government updated her travel tips for Cubaurging people to avoid all non-essential travel there and not to extend personal stays within the country.
The situation has already prompted Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat take down flights to the island country and make plans to get their customers home urgently.
On Thursday, Air Transat announced its repatriation plan published on its website.
He said he planned to return 100 percent of his customers “to their point of origin” by Wednesday, via outbound flights that began on February 11.
The company said new itineraries have been sent to all customers scheduled to return on February 14.
Customers whose flights are scheduled to take place between February 15 and 17 will be sent confirmations for those trips.
5,000 Transat customers are still in Cuba
An Air Transat spokesperson told CBC News that more than 6,500 customers were in Cuba “at the start of repatriation efforts,” but said 1,500 of those people they either returned yesterday or are flying home on Thursday.
That leaves roughly 5,000 customers who will return home after Thursday.
The planes that Air Transat sends to Cuba to pick up passengers are not carrying Canadian tourists into the country at this time.
“Air Transat flights are operating empty on the outbound leg from Canada and are used solely for customer repatriation, with limited exceptions,” a spokesperson said via email.
“These exceptions include Cuban nationals who have been visiting Canada and are returning by plane to their initial point of departure in Cuba.“
Air Canada meanwhile announced Monday that he started flights to pick up about 3,000 customers “already at the destination and bring them home” from Cuba.
The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for an update on the status of its own recovery effort.
WestJet also said Monday that it was canceling flights to Cuba and that it would send empty planes there to pick up vacationing customers so they could return home.
A WestJet spokesman said via email Thursday that the airline continues to “progress toward our goal of repatriating all Canadian guests currently in Cuba by February 17.”
The spokesman did not say how many WestJet customers remained in Cuba.
American pressure on Cuba
Cuba’s fuel supply has come under pressure as the United States has blocked nearby suppliers, including Venezuela and Mexico, from supplying Havana with oil.
US President Donald Trump is applying serious economic pressure to an already tense Cuba mired in a food and energy crisis. Andrew Chang explains why the US has now decided to cut off the country’s oil supply, and why it’s also personal for Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
USA forcibly removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power in January is still exercising strong influence on Venezuela and its oil.
The US has also pressured Cuba’s longtime ally Mexico to cut off any oil supply to Havana and threatened sanctions against any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba.
On Thursday, two Mexican Navy ships docked in Cuba carrying humanitarian aid, including food supplies and personal hygiene items.
“Sometimes you think things will get better, but they don’t,” said Javier González, a Cuban who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday, as he watched the Mexican ships arrive.
“We can’t stay the way we are because it’s too hard. We’ll have to wait and see.”
A blow to a key industry
The fuel cuts are expected to be another blow to Cuba’s once-thriving tourism economy.
Cuba routinely welcomed more than one million Canadian visitors annually in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Cuba’s tourism industry has been struggling lately, and fewer Canadians have traveled there.
Cuban analyst Andrés Pertierra said the damage to the country’s tourism industry would have knock-on effects.
“Tourism that is dampened during what should be a high season will affect everything else” Pertierra told CBC News by email earlier this week.
