• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 01 / 15 / 2011

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Tampa Bay Business Journal - by Jane Meinhardt , Staff writer. Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 5:23pm EST. Direct air travel between Tampa and Cuba is able to begin now that the Obama administration has approved it, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, said Friday.

“I am confident Tampa International Airport will be first in line to apply for final approval for expanded eligibility,” Castor said in a written statement.

Allowing charter flights to Cuba from Tampa International opens doors to create jobs in our community and plan for economic growth in our region, Castor said.

Tampa entrepreneur Jason Busto hailed the news as “a great day for Tampa.”

“The business opportunities are tremendous,” said Busto, a long-time advocate of direct flights from TIA and publisher of the Cuba Standard, a Cuba business and economic news publication. “It’s very exciting. We’ve finally reconnected to Cuba.”

Busto estimated charter flights will begin operating in a matter of a month or so. No federally licensed Cuba charter company currently flies out of the airport, but he expects that to change when Miami charter operations expand to Tampa.

Busto gave much of the credit for the TIA Cuba flights authorization to the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, which lobbied Washington for the flights.

Gulfstream International, which does fly out of TIA, runs Cuba charter flights out of Miami. The company is the process of Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

In 2009, Obama issued an executive order to lift travel restrictions on family travel to Cuba and to increase the amount of monetary remittance that families could send to relatives in Cuba, the statement said. Since then Castor has actively encouraged the administration to designate Tampa International Airport as an entry/exit point.

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/120168