The well-known German travel agency TUI (Touristik Union International) reported that it would stop direct flights between Manchester, United Kingdom, and Varadero, Cuba, starting in 2024.
According to the medium Travel Weeklyflights will stop taking place starting in April, putting an end to the only direct connection between these two countries.
A spokesperson for TUI in the United Kingdom and Ireland spoke to the aforementioned media, however, it did not offer a justification for the cancellation of flights at the end of this winter season.
“We regularly review our flight schedule and, as a result, we will no longer operate to Cuba by the summer of 2024,” he said, without offering further details.
For some analysts, the decision had to do with the little or no demand for the flights, which caused the company to suspend said route so as not to continue losing money.
The company assured that those people who already had a ticket for after April 2024 will be able to change their reservations at no additional cost to other destinations. Likewise, they were offered an additional incentive of 10% discount or a full refund.
For his part, Matthew O’Sullivan, director of Captivating Cuba, indicated that the departure of TUI from the Cuban market would not affect much, since there were travel alternatives for Europeans who wanted to travel to the Greater Antilles, this through airlines. such as Air France, Condor, Air Europa and Iberia.
In turn, he said that Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet also organize flights to various Cuban airports across Canada.
“We continue to receive an increasing flow of bookings for dual-centre holidays with Cuba, along with destinations that offer direct flights to the UK, such as Mexico, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas,” he added.
While the director of Captivating Cuba took the situation with optimism, the abandonment of TUI Group brings with it uncertainty. Well, the company opted for the tourist destination thinking that it would be a good business.
In that sense, the cancellation of air operations is a clear sign that something It is not at all good with tourism to the Islandthis despite everything that the Castro regime says to justify the waste of resources it allocates to this sector.
This may be a little more evident if factors such as the low demand that the country’s hotels had at the beginning of the year are taken into account, or that the Island only It had met just over half of its tourism goal during the first 10 months of 2023.
