Alaska Airlines announced today that it will end a daily flight between Los Angeles and Havana, Cuba. The last flight is planned for Jan. 22. The airline will redeploy aircraft used to serve Havana to markets with higher demand.
"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," said Andrew Harrison, chief commercial officer for Alaska Airlines. "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."
About 80 percent of Alaska's flyers to Havana visited under a U.S. allowance for individual "people-to-people" educational travel. Changes to U.S. policy last week eliminated that allowance. Given the changes in Cuba travel policies, the airline will redeploy these resources to other markets the airline serves where demand continues to be strong.
Alaska started the Los Angeles-Havana flight on Jan. 5, 2017.