National Security Advisor Bolton recently announced that the current administration will tighten rules on travel to Cuba to close tourism loopholes, limiting Cuba travel to mainly family visits. But that’s all that Bolton said. The Department of the Treasury is responsible for issuing specific sanctions, so many expected the Treasury to officially announce new rules the following week. But so far, it hasn’t announced anything at all. The result for now is uncertainty—despite some reports that the specific details are indeed coming.
As far as anyone can tell, the official travel rules for visiting Cuba remain as they were before Bolton’s vague April 17 announcement: A broad “general license” is required for Cuba travel by U.S. citizens, with a few limitations.
Cuba travel rules were relaxed substantially under the Obama administration, which encouraged the travel industry to jump in—and it did. A slew of airlines started flying to Cuba after the change, though many have cancelled initial routes because of weak demand (not because of any government restrictions). Similarly, under the liberalized rules, cruise lines started scheduling stops at Cuban ports and U.S. hotel operators started looking at establishing a presence in the main Cuban centers; both businesses would presumably be hurt by new restrictions. The Trump administration has talked up Cuba travel restrictions, but the technical travel process remains largely unchanged—for now.
“Cruising to Cuba falls under the ‘lawful travel exemption’ under Title III of the Helms Burton Act,” the Cruising Lines International Association (CLIA) said the possibility of restrictions tightening on Cuba cruises. “Our member cruise lines have been and are now engaged in lawful travel to Cuba as expressly authorized by the United States federal government … Cruises to Cuba have delivered important social and cultural exchange between the people of the United States and the people of Cuba. They have also provided much-needed entrepreneurial opportunities that provide important economic benefit directly to the Cuban people.”
Related:5 Things You Need to Know About Traveling to Cuba
So the announcement of forthcoming Cuba travel restrictions, followed by inaction, leaves both the travel industry and travelers hanging. Nobody in the business knows how to address planning for service, hiring staff, and doing all the things travel suppliers have to do.
Individual travelers don’t know whether to cancel Cuba trips they’ve already planned or stop planning Cuba trips. There is a general consensus in the travel blogosphere that whatever new rules Treasury announces will “grandfather” any existing arrangements and commitments. But that’s just speculation, not fact.
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
August brings the last month of peak seasonal temperatures. There is also a last hurrah of summer travel before school resumes. Labor Day weekend signals that fall is right around the corner. As has been the case for most of the year, the travel restrictions are minimal for most destinations.
Beginning on June 1, Spirit will become the third airline to pull out of the Cuba market altogether, joining Frontier and Silver Airways. Two other airlines, American and JetBlue, have cut capacity on their Cuba flights, either by reducing frequency or downgrading to smaller planes.
Travelers heading to or from Washington, D.C., through Reagan/National Airport can expect major ground travel disruptions and delays through July 18. Trains on both the Blue and Yellow lines will suspend operations on two track segments:
The last day in August marks the unofficial end of summer, and now also a historic day for U.S.-Cuba relations. JetBlue announced last month that it would be the first to send a passenger plane to Cuba in 2016, and at 10:58 a.m. today, fulfilled this promise.
Somebody had to be first. And when it comes to the relaunch of scheduled flights between the U.S. and Cuba, following the normalization of relations between the two countries after more than 50 years, it appears that JetBlue is set to snag those bragging rights.
In a historic agreement signed this week, the United States and Cuba have now resumed commercial air traffic between the two countries for the first time in 50 years, with routes expected to be running by fall 2016. Currently, only chartered flights are allowed to operate between the two countries.
Since diplomatic relations with Cuba were reinstated and a newly liberalized U.S.-Cuba aviation agreement was enacted last year, travel between the two countries has been a decidedly up-and-down affair.
Cuba’s swing from “It” destination to last year’s Caribbean wannabe has been nothing less than breathtaking, an unprecedented turnaround in the annals of tourism marketing.
With the launch of many new direct flights from the U.S. to Cuba, it may seem like the door to the formerly forbidden country is wide open for Americans. Unfortunately, that’s still not quite the case. Right now, you’ll still need to travel under one of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) 12 categories of travel, the easiest of which is a “people-to-people” Cuba educational tour.