The Bolivian state aviation company (BoA) will suspend at the end of July the flights it offers weekly between the cities of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Havana, according to the portal Aviationline,just nine months after opening. If you search for BoA flights to Cuba on the airline’s website, in fact, they can only be purchased until July 26.
Since the route was inaugurated on October 26, a Boeing 737-800 plane with capacity for 189 passengers flew directly from Santa Cruz de la Sierra – the economic capital of the Andean country – to Havana.
The flights from Bolivia to Cuba were part of an expansion of BoA operations announced in 2023 and that included routes to the capitals of other countries such as Venezuela and Paraguay. These destinations, for the moment, remain unchanged. The cancellation of the route represents another setback in the connections that the Island has with South America.
At the beginning of the year, the cancellation of flights to Argentina and Colombia was also announced.
Currently, flights from Ecuador offered by Latam, with a stopover in Lima, and from Panama operated by Copa Airlines, are the main connecting routes between South America and Cuba. Other regional connections that remain active include weekly flights between Caracas and Havana offered by Conviasa and Cubana de Aviación. Meanwhile, FlyAllways operates flights from Guyana.
In January, just over half a year after Aerolíneas Argentinas reestablished its flights to Cuba, the company announced that it was canceling them again, considering that the weekly route via Cancún was not profitable, thus ending the favors of the Peronist Government for with the Cuban regime.
A few months later, in May, the state airline Cubana de Aviación also suspended the regular flights it maintained with Argentina, alleging the “refusal” on the part of the Argentine company Yacimientos Petrolófilos Fiscales SA (YPF) to supply fuel to its aircraft. On the Cuban side, this decision was attributed to the application of the United States embargo, although other sources point to Havana’s non-payments as the reason.
Another connection that the Island lost was the one between Medellín and Havana, which was operated by Wingo, the only low-cost South American airline that flew to Cuba. This will stop operating as of June 15. Colombian media have detailed that to date, the airline has not commented on the matter, so the reasons behind the cessation of operations are unknown.
