Scheduled commercial airline service to Havana from 10 American cities won tentative government approval Thursday, advancing Barack Obama’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba. US citizens’ interest in visiting Cuba has swelled since relations between the two nations started to thaw in December 2014. Nearly 160,000 US leisure travelers flew to Cuba last year, along with hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans visiting family. Last month, the transportation department announced the approval of six US airlines to begin service as early as this fall to other Cuban cities. It has been more than 50 years since the last scheduled air service from the US to the communist island nation.

Source: The Guardian July 07, 2016 15:22 UTC