The day after major Canadian airlines halted passenger flights to Cuba, efforts continued to pick up thousands of stranded passengers on the island and reschedule travel to the country.
Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat announced they would be suspending southbound flights to Cuba after the government warned that aviation fuel would not be available at airports as of Tuesday due to a shortage. Air Canada and WestJet are sending empty planes to the island to fly travellers home, while Air Transat is in the process of organizing repatriation flights.
How many travellers are waiting to return to Canada?
Air Canada said Monday approximately 3,000 customers were in Cuba awaiting flights home. Air Transat told the Star it had more than 6,500 customers in the country.
Brittney Culmone and her husband Dave were enjoying their vacation in Varadero when she learned flights were stopping.
The couple spent their Tuesday afternoon waiting for a bus to take them to the airport so they could return home to Burlington, Ont. The night before, the hotel manager advised her to bring water to the airport, and be prepared to be sent back to the hotel.
At the airport, waiting to board her flight, Culmone said she was relieved to be heading home.
“Checking in took forever because the power would shut down every 10 minutes and reset all the computers,” Culmone said. “Otherwise we love Cuba and there’s nothing that would stop us from coming back. There were very minute issues but they’ve done a good job of making sure tourists have a smooth trip.”
Bianca Mazziotti from Toronto said she’s anticipating becoming more stressed as she waits for her return flight to Canada on Feb. 15.
“Staff are mainly just trying to distract us with the regular shows and events they have,” she said from her resort in Cayo Coco. “I also don’t feel comfortable talking to them about it because they have to deal with the impact of the fuel shortage in a bigger way than me.”
She arrived in Cuba on Sunday in a party of 10 other travellers and says she hasn’t noticed much difference from her visit last year besides a “sadness in the air.”
How are airlines bringing travellers home?
Air Canada will be operating return flights as scheduled, but without taking anyone south.
“This has the benefit of allowing people to complete their holiday and it also avoids any uncertainty or potential issues around changing people’s flights,” airline spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said.
“For customers now in Cuba who wish to come home sooner, we have put in a place a special policy that allows people to change their originally booked flight to an earlier one at no cost, provided there is space on the aircraft.”
Fitzpatrick added that the process of bringing travellers home will take a week or more, and Air Canada has not set a definitive end date.
For the remaining flights, Air Canada will travel with extra fuel and make stops to refuel as necessary, the airline said in a media release.
Affected Air Transat customers will be contacted directly by the airline, which will provide their return flight details.
“Our priority is to ensure their orderly return to Canada. To this end, a repatriation flight plan is currently being prepared and will be deployed over the coming days,” spokesperson Marie-Eve Vallières said.
WestJet said it operates up to 15 flights a day from Canada to Cuba over the winter. It said customers currently in Cuba will return home as planned and the airline is focusing on bringing travellers back to Canada as planned, on or before February 16.
What if you have a scheduled trip to Cuba?
Mitchell Piper, a registered nurse from Manitoba, said he had been keeping up with airline news on Monday and was “gutted” to learn his WestJet flight scheduled for Feb. 26 was cancelled, 12 hours after the airline had said his flight wouldn’t be affected.
With his trip in limbo, Piper wasn’t sure when he’d be able to see his partner in Cuba, their 18-month daughter, and deliver much needed supplies like food, portable chargers and emergency lights. So he decided to go to Cuba another way by taking two different airlines through the United States and Panama at a cost of $1,500 — three times more than his original flight.
“If I get stranded in Cuba because of the situation there, at least I’m with my family,” he said.
Why does Cuba have a shortage of commercial aviation fuel?
Mark Manger, a professor of political economy and global affairs at the University of Toronto, said Cuba’s shortages were not suddenly caused by an oil embargo.
“It’s deteriorating rapidly, but the situation has been really bad for the past two or three years,” he said.
Manger’s friends on the island have told him the situation is dire, with electricity out, schools closed and hospitals reduced to the bare minimum.
“When Cuba is not earning foreign currency, it cannot purchase gas,” Manger explained. “My worry is that it’s going to result in some kind of humanitarian catastrophe.”
The Government of Canada updated its travel advisory to Cuba in early February, advising travellers to “exercise a high degree of caution.” In a social media post on Feb. 3, the government warned the situation was “unpredictable and could deteriorate, disrupting flight availability on short notice.”
John Gradek, a lecturer with McGill University and former Air Canada director, said planes always carry more fuel than needed to account for delays, weather and other unforeseen circumstances. Calculating those margins for a return trip could push some planes beyond their fuel capacity.
“If I’m carrying an extra pound of fuel on the airplane, I have to carry additional fuel in order for me to be able to carry those extra pounds,” Gradek said. “There’s a pure economic decision that’s being made at a certain point in time, to say it’s not worth it.”
With files from Marco Chown Oved
