Less than a year after Alaska Airlines began daily flights to Cuba amid a burst of red-white-and-blue fanfare, the Seattle-based airline says it’ll end them in January.
Alaska said demand for the flights to Havana has faded after an initial burst of interest.
“Travel is about making connections, and we were honored to have played a role in helping people make personal connections by traveling between the U.S. and Cuba,” Andrew Harrison, chief commercial officer for Alaska Airlines, said today in a news release. “We continually evaluate every route we fly to ensure we have the right number of seats to match the number of people who want to go there.”
The Trump administration’s shift in policy toward Cuba was a contributing factor. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump tightened restrictions on business dealings, and last week, travel requirements were changed to rule out individual “people-to-people” educational travel to Cuba from the U.S.
