Cuba for Christmas? Prague Airport gets new direct connection to Caribbean

A new charter flight route between Prague and the Cuban city of Santa Clara aims to boost tourism by providing a convenient travel option between the Czech Republic and the Caribbean.

The inaugural flight from Prague to Santa Clara is scheduled to depart on Dec. 5, 2023. A weekly Tuesday flight will run until April 30. The flight, operated by Spanish airline World2Fly, is the first direct air route between the two countries in over 15 years.

Cuban Ambassador Saylín Martínez joined local officials at Prague Airport Tuesday to celebrate the inaugural flight's launch.

World2Fly will operate the service using an Airbus A350-900 aircraft with a capacity for 432 passengers. The route also includes a flight from Bratislava, Slovakia, with a stopover in Prague, before continuing directly to Santa Clara, located 261 kilometers east of Cuba's capital Havana. The estimated flight time is around 11.5 hours.

The opening of the route is timed to coincide with the arrival of cold weather; travel agencies Exim Tours and Fischer, part of the European group Der Touristik, will offer package holiday deals for Carribean winter breaks.

According to the head of Prague Airport Jiří Pos, a total of 15 new flight routes starting this winter will boost traffic at the airport by 10 percent during the season. Speaking to Seznam Zprávy, Pos revealed the new winter schedule includes destinations such as the Albanian capital of Tirana and cities in Egypt that were previously not served directly from Prague.

Notable other new additions include direct routes to Bilbao and Valencia in Spain. Earlier this year, the airport also saw new connections launched to the South Korean capital of Seoul, Yerevan in Armenia, and Keflavík in Iceland.

This winter, Der Touristik will also launch – for the first time – direct flights from the Czech capital to the Dominican Republic and the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc.