New charter flights spark Puerto Rican interest in Cuba
Cuba y Puerto Rico son de un pajaro las dos alas. Reciben flores y balas sobre el mismo corazón” [Cuba and Puerto Rico are the two wings of a bird. They receive flowers and bullets in the same heart.].
That’s how Puerto Rican poet Lola Rodríguez de Tio described Puerto Rico-Cuba ties more than a century ago in her “Ode to Cuba.”
The two Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands that took such divergent paths are now poised to strengthen their historic ties.
In November, charter organizer Cuba Travel Services began the first weekly charter flight between the U.S. commonwealth and the communist country, linking San Juan with Santiago de Cuba. C&T Charters plans a second weekly charter this year between San Juan’s Luís Muñoz Marín International Airport and Havana. And next year, Cuba Travel Services plans a third flight, to Havana.
The charters mainly serve the Cuban exile community in Puerto Rico, now estimated to number 17,860, said the 2010 census. That’s down from a peak of 30,410 Cubans in 1971, according to U.S. immigration data.
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