For the first time in decades, passengers got on a jet at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport that could take them all the way to Cuba’s capital – albeit with a layover in Los Angeles.
Alaska Airlines’ Flight 286 set out from Sea-Tac at 5:10 a.m. today for the Seattle-based carrier’s inaugural commercial trip to Havana. Among the dignitaries on board: King County Executive Dow Constantine and Ana Mari Cauce, the University of Washington’s Cuban-born president.
The Boeing 737-900ER jet stopped at LAX to pick up additional passengers – and give Alaska an opportunity to indulge in some Latin-flavored celebration. Then the jet took off again for the four-hour-plus flight to Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport.
Flight 286 finished up the journey at 4:57 p.m. local time. After another flurry of fanfare in Havana, the jet turned around to make Flight 287 to LAX. It was due back in Seattle in the middle of the night.
Thrilled by opportunity to build greater ties w/ the people of #Cuba as @AlaskaAir makes inaugural flight to Havana. #iFlyAlaska pic.twitter.com/ILibx1FqDL
— Ana Mari Cauce (@amcauce) January 5, 2017
What a fun change! #havana @lisa_gervais @AlaskaAir #cuba pic.twitter.com/7BUKNfDoE0
— Michael Gervais (@michaelgervais) January 5, 2017
On board the first commercial West Coast flight to Havana, Cuba! #iFlyAlaska #HAVagoodflight pic.twitter.com/ldVQtcBY7M
— Alaska Airlines (@AlaskaAir) January 5, 2017
Alaska won the West Coast’s only slot for direct flights to Cuba from the U.S. Department of Transportation last summer, as part of a deal that grew out of the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations. Other airlines have been flying to Cuban airports for months, but Alaska wanted to wait until after the holiday season.
Flight 286 is designed so that Pacific Northwest fliers can get on board at Sea-Tac and continue onward to Havana after stopping in LAX. Flight 287 follows the same routine in reverse for the return westward.
In a blog posting, Alaska Airlines notes that this isn’t the carrier’s first flight to Cuba, technically speaking. In the early 1970s, Alaska flew U.S. Military Airlift Command charter flights to the U.S.-leased military base at Guantanamo Bay.
Back then, U.S. commercial flights to Cuba weren’t allowed, due to the embargo that was put into effect in the early 1960s due to Cuba’s communist revolution.
Even now, travel to Cuba strictly for tourism is still banned. U.S. citizens are permitted to go if they fall under one of 12 approved categories, such as family visits, education, journalism, professional meetings, humanitarian projects and the exportation and importation of information.
Ed Fischer, a director in Alaska Airlines’ System Operations Control, definitely intends to visit Cuba. Fischer grew up on the base at Guantanamo Bay, where his father was a teacher, and took one of those military charter flights when he was 4 years old.
““I’ve always planned on getting back, once they opened it up,” Fischer said in today’s Alaska blog posting. “I’ve got six kids in my family, and my youngest sister was born down there. It might be fun going back with her and her family, to see Cuba now, and how things have progressed.”
Update for 4:30 p.m. PT Jan. 5: This report has been updated with the plane’s arrival in Havana.
