Cuba continues to be a puzzle for the U.S. travel industry, with cruise demand heating up while airline business to the Caribbean island continues to disappoint the airlines.
Spirit Airlines has now become the third carrier to drop its Cuba routes for insufficient business, while two others have reduced some of their flights or switched to smaller planes. At the same time, Norwegian Cruise Line is adding 33 more round-trip sailings to the island for next year.
Spirit joins Frontier and Silver Airways on the dropout list; May 31 will be the last day for its Fort Lauderdale-Havana service. American and JetBlue have not dropped any of their routes, but have reduced capacity.
At the same time, cruises to Cuba, which started slowly with Carnival’s Fathom brand as the only option, now have cruises scheduled by almost every one of the big cruise lines, and demand is reported high. NCL has the busiest schedule, mosly of 4-night cruises. Its chairman, Frank Del Rio, is a native of Cuba.
