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Air Transat is aiming to get all of its customers out of Cuba by next Wednesday, amid a call for Canadians to avoid delaying their exit from the country.
Canada-to-Cuba flights have abruptly wound down in recent days, after Cuban authorities let it be known that a fuel shortage would prevent airplanes from refuelling on the island.
On Wednesday, Canada’s federal government updated its travel advisory for Cuba, urging people to avoid all non-essential travel there and to not extend personal stays within the country.
The situation already prompted Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat to wind down flights to the island country and to make plans to bring its customers home on an urgent basis.
On Thursday, Air Transat provided an update on its repatriation plan that it posted to its website.
It said it plans to repatriate 100 per cent of its customers “to their point of origin” by Feb. 17, via outgoing flights that began on Wednesday.
The company said new itineraries have been sent to all customers whose returns are scheduled to take place by Saturday.
Customers whose flights are due to take place between Feb. 15 and 17 are being sent confirmations for those journeys.
5,000 Transat customers still in Cuba
A spokesperson for Air Transat told CBC News that more than 6,500 customers were in Cuba “at the start of the repatriation effort,” but it said 1,500 of those people either returned yesterday or are flying home on Thursday.
That leaves roughly 5,000 of its customers who will head home after Thursday.
The planes Air Transat is sending to Cuba to pick up travellers aren’t ferrying Canadian vacationers into the country at this point.
“Air Transat flights are operating empty on the outbound leg from Canada and are being used exclusively for customer repatriation, with limited exceptions,” the spokesperson said via email.
“These exceptions involve Cuban nationals who were visiting Canada and are being flown back to their original point of departure in Cuba.“
Air Canada, meanwhile, announced Monday that it had begun flights to retrieve some 3,000 customers “already at destination and return them home” from Cuba.
The company told CBC News in an emailed statement on Thursday night that it continues to return customers home, but it did not have “any updated numbers to provide” on how many were awaiting their trip back.
This week, WestJet also said that it was winding down flights to Cuba and would be sending empty aircraft there to pick up vacationing customers so they could come home.
A WestJet spokesperson said via email Thursday that the airline continues “to make progress toward our goal of repatriating all Canadian guests currently in Cuba by February 17.”
The airline is sending planes equipped with enough fuel to avoid having to fill up in Cuba.
That change has led to “several originally scheduled flights” being adjusted or cancelled, which are now being consolidated through Toronto.
“These changes allow us to maintain safe operations while ensuring we can return guests to Canada as quickly and reliably as possible,” the spokesperson said.
WestJet did not indicate how many of its customers remain in Cuba.
Albertan Jerry Kitt is due to fly home on WestJet in a few days’ time, but he says he’s in no hurry to end his vacation early.
“We’re all keen to stay,” said Kitt, who’s been to Cuba on six previous occasions, in a brief conversation with CBC News on Thursday evening.
Kitt said he had a message from WestJet saying his flight scheduled for later this month has been cancelled. But he hasn’t heard yet as to when he’ll be flying home.
U.S. pressure on Cuba
Cuba’s fuel supply has come under pressure as the United States has moved to stop nearby suppliers, including Venezuela and Mexico, from providing oil to Havana.
U.S. President Donald Trump is applying severe economic pressure to an already-strained Cuba mired in a food and power crisis. Andrew Chang explains why the U.S. is choosing now to cut off the country’s oil supply, and why, for Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it’s also personal.
The U.S. forcibly removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power in January and now exercises a strong influence on Venezuela and its oil.
The U.S. has also pressured Cuba’s longtime ally Mexico to halt any supply of oil to Havana and threatened sanctions on any country selling or providing oil to Cuba.
On Thursday, two Mexican navy ships docked in Cuba carrying humanitarian aid, including food supplies and personal hygiene items.
“Sometimes you think that things are going to improve, but it’s not like that,” said Javier González, a Cuban who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday, as he watched the Mexican ships arrive.
“We can’t stay how we are because it’s too hard. We’ll have to wait and see.”
A blow to a crucial industry
The cuts in fuel are expected to be another blow to Cuba’s once-thriving tourism economy.
Cuba routinely welcomed more than one million Canadian visitors annually in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Cuba’s tourism industry has been struggling more recently, and fewer Canadians have been travelling there.
Cuba analyst Andrés Pertierra said the damage being done to the country’s tourism industry will have spinoff effects.
“Tourism being throttled during what is supposed to be high season is going to touch everything else,” Pertierra told CBC News by email earlier this week.