Cubana de Aviacion
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Cubana de Aviación is Cuba's domestic and international flag carrier airline. Its base is the José Martí International Airport in Havana. The company was founded on October 8th, 1929. It is one of the first ones opening the era of commercial flights. From the very beginnings it has been characterized by the constant improvement of its services. It is a founder and member of the International Association of Air Transportation (IATA), the International Association of Aeronautical Telecommunications (SITA) and of the International Association of Latin American Air Transportation (AITAL).
Nowadays, Cubana de Aviación S.A is the leading airline of Cuba. It is in charge of passengers' transportation, cargo and mail transportation. It has 32 representatives in other countries and 13 offices all over Cuba.
History
Cubana was established on 8 October 1929 as Compañía Cubana Nacional de Aviación Curtiss, showing its association with the Curtiss plane-making company. It started operations in 1930. In 1932, American airline Pan Am bought out Cubana, and the word Curtiss was omitted. In 1944 the name of the airline was changed again to Compania Cubana de Avacion. In 1945 a majority share in the airline was sold to Cuban investors, with PanAm retaining a 42% stake. The first international flight was in 1946 to Miami using DC-3 airplanes. The Miami route, because of its political and economical significance, would later prove to be an important part of Cubana's history. In June 1948 a transatlantic service was started from Havana to Madrid. In 1954, the air company became fully Cuban owned.
-->When Fidel Castro came into power, the airline was nationalised and stopped all United States routes, including the one to Miami International Airport. In 1959 the airline was nationalised and changed its name to Empresa Consolidada Cubana de Aviación, but the airline was still popularly known just as Cubana. With the US embargo, it had to turn to the Soviet Union to get its airplanes, and the first one to be obtained was the Ilyushin Il-14, just after the embargo began. Ilyushin Il-18, Antonov An-12 and Antonov An-24 soon followed. In 1974, with the arrival of the Ilyushin Il-62, Cubana was able to start services to Europe with flights to Barajas International Airport in Madrid.
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-->Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cubana was given license to buy jetliners from elsewhere, but still not those built in the United States. They acquired Airbus A320 equipment and leased a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 from French airline AOM. That plane was lost in a crash at Guatemala City. Cubana also acquired Fokker F27 aircraft to reinforce its fleet.
Cubana's Soviet-built aircraft began to suffer from old age, and the fact that spare parts for those planes were hard to find, and partly because of that it suffered a series of fatal accidents during the 1990s. Cubana is trying to improve its image and purchase new Airbus jets. The airline is wholly owned by Corporacion Cubana de Aviacion.
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Incidents and accidents
On November 1, 1958 a Vickers Viscount Cubana en route from Miami to Varadero to Havana was hijacked by Cuban militants. The hijackers were trying to land at Sierra Cristal in Eastern Cuba to deliver weapons to Raul Castro's communist rebels. As night approached, eventually the plane ran out of fuel and tried an emergency landing at the Preston sugar mill, it did not make it and instead landed in the ocean and broke apart killing most passengers and crew, there were three or four survivors.On 6 October, 1976, terrorist sabotage brought down Cubana Flight 455, a Douglas DC-8 departing from Barbados to Cuba. Two bombs were put on by a terrorist organization of a CIA-linked Cuban exile, Luis Posada Carriles, killing all 73 people on board. Among the dead were all the 24 young members of the Fencing team that had just obtained all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship.
On July 11 1997, a Cubana de Aviación Antonov An-24 crashed into the Caribbean off the southeastern coast of Cuba killing 44 people.
On April 1 2003, an Antonov An-24 of Cubana was forced to fly to Key West, Florida by a man with hand grenades. The plane had to stop in Havana for refueling. In Havana, some of the 46 passengers in the plane escaped. The FBI awaited the plane at Key West.
Services (Scheduled Destinations)
see full article: Cubana de Aviación destinations.Codeshare Airlines
Aerocaribbean, Aeroflot, Aeropostal, Air Europa, Air Jamaica, Blue Panorama, Copa AirlinesFleet
Passenger Fleet
The Cubana fleet consists of the following aircraft (at March 2006):
| Aircraft | # | Seats | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A320-200 | 2 | ||
| Airbus A330-200 | |||
| Antonov An-24B | 4 | ||
| Antonov An-24RV | 10 | ||
| Antonov An-26 | 4 | ||
| ATR 42-500 | 1 | ||
| Ilyushin Il-62M | 5 | ||
| Ilyushin Il-96-300 | 2 (2 on order) | ||
| Tupolev Tu-154B-2 | 3 | ||
| Tupolev Tu-204 | (3 on order) | ||
| Yakovlev Yak-40K | 1 | ||
| Yakovlev Yak-42D | 6 |
Cubana recently took delivery of the two Ilyushin Il-96 jet which was on display at MAKS 2005 airshow in Moscow, Russia in August 2005.
Cargo Fleet
A Tupolev Tu-204 frieghter is on order.
Other facts of interest
- Cubana's planes often carry Cuba's national sports teams, even to United States territories.
- In 1983, Cubana was prohibited from using United States air-space to operate their flights to Canada, after two of their jets overflew close to American military facilities during two consecutive days. Cubana was given US overflight permission in 1998 in a Bilateral Agreement.
- Cubana also operates an air charter division.
- Cubana is the only known major Latin American airline to use Russian built airplanes (in the days of Cold war Aeronica used the planes), and it is the only Latin American airline with an established route to Moscow.
- In The Godfather Part II when Michael Corleone abandons Havana he boards a Cubana plane.
- Cubana's planes are often chartered by president Fidel Castro for official trips.
Timetable images notes
The images of the Cubana de Aviacion timetables are used with permission and as courtesy of [Bjorn Larsson and David Zekria, and are part of their personal collections].External links
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