Galo Beltran stands on the tarmac testing a hand-held baggage scanner. Each time a barcode is successfully read, he smiles.
The device, which is used to track luggage, is deployed at airports across the world. But until this moment, Beltran wasn’t sure if it would work on Cuban cellular networks.
As satisfying as meeting that challenge was, there are hundreds more to be tackled as U.S. airlines prepare to resume their first regularly scheduled flights to Cuba in five decades. Collecting baggage fees in a country where most U.S. credit cards don’t work, for instance. And solutions need to be found rapidly – airlines must start flights within three months of being granted a route by the U.S. government.
The Associated Press got exclusive access, joining American Airlines on a trip to Cuba to access the airports and meet with officials there.
“We have a good plan in place,” said Beltran, a longtime American executive who is overseeing the airline’s entrance into Cuba. “Even with the challenges, we have been able to look for loopholes.”
The Department of Transportation on Friday granted American and five other airlines permission to fly to nine Cuban cities. Normally, airlines spend up to a year preparing for new foreign markets. In this case, flights must start within 90 days of the government awarding the route. A decision is expected later this summer on the more-coveted – and contested – routes to Havana.
Airlines are racing to figure out how to offer the same streamlined service that is provided out of the U.S. Cuba’s airports lack self-serve check-in kiosks. The terminal currently used by U.S.-bound charter flights has a tiny departure lobby and overflowing baggage belts. And all the workers are government employees, leading airlines to question if they will have a dedicated staff who can be trained in their policies and computer programs.
All flights between the two countries today are charters, many operated by the carriers now seeking approval for scheduled service.
The Cuban government requires most visitors from the U.S. to have a “tourist visa.” However, the U.S. government doesn’t allow tourism to Cuba. Visitors must be on so-called cultural exchange trips. Airlines don’t want to be in the middle of this political parsing of words, so they are talking about “visitor visas.”
U.S. citizens’ interest in visiting Cuba has swelled since relations between the two nations started to thaw in December 2014. Nearly 160,000 U.S. leisure travelers flew to Cuba last year, along with hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans visiting family.
Currently, 46 airlines fly to Cuba. Now, thanks to an easing of regulations under the Obama administration, U.S. airlines are about to add to that mix.