With the return of Transant to the runways of the Jardines del Rey Airport, Canada continues to be confirmed as the most important market for the Ciego de Ávila tourist destination, where some 20 flights are received from that country every week.

“Moreover, we are still not even halfway through the flow,” Néstor Rodríguez Moya, chief of operations at the International Airport, who in the high season of 2019 dealt with about 60 flights per week, clarifies. Therefore, more than 50 of them were Canadian.

However, omicron had not decimated northern tourism and three Canadian airlines offered regular flights to the northern cays: Air Canada, Sunwing and Transat.

The tightening of the measures at the end of 2021 left Transat with “drooping wings” and now in February, flights resume. This Thursday, the first one arrived from the city of Halifax and the increase is expected.

The Cuban Tourism Counselor in Canada even puts dates on that recovery. As soon as “in March”, Lessner Gómez expects it, who, during a video call with Invasor, offered details of the 90 flights per week that, on average, are received in Jardines del Rey, Varadero, Holguín and Santa María, fundamentally.

“Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg…” the list of cities that Lessner mentions only confirms the origin of a market that has been stable since at least 2008.

Julie Bertrand, supervisor of Transac, arrived on the Island that year and “we have not had any irregularities, everything is fine so far. We stopped because of the pandemic, but we're back, it's safe."

Air Canada had already done it before, in July 2021. Then, in October, Sunwing landed again.

The return of these operations could guarantee that Cuba will receive 1.2 million Canadians in 2022, as predicted by the commercial director of the Hola Sun tour operator, specialized in Cuban destinations.