Silver Airways Suspending Cuba Service On 22 April 2017; May Seek Frontier's MIA-HAV Route

From the company:

"Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Silver Airways has maintained from the beginning that these smaller Cuba markets – which are similar to its successful network and fleet strategy in Florida and the Bahamas – are best suited for Silver’s smaller aircraft type.   

While the actual total number of passengers currently traveling to and from Cuba on all carriers combined is in line with what Silver originally projected, other airlines continue to serve this market with too many flights and oversized aircraft, which has led to an increase in capacity of approximately 300% between the U.S. and Cuba. 

In addition to overcapacity, distribution through online travel agencies and codeshare agreements have been unavailable since airlines began servicing Cuba last fall.  Now, six months later, this issue is still not fully resolved, resulting in depressed demand.   

This lack of demand coupled with overcapacity by the larger airlines has made the Cuban routes unprofitable for all carriers.   

As a result, Silver has made the difficult but necessary decision to suspend its Cuba service effective April 22, 2017.  It is not in the best interest of Silver and its team members to behave in the same irrational manner as other airlines.  However, Silver will continue to monitor Cuba routes and will consider resuming service in the future if the commercial environment changes. 

Silver continues to focus efforts on their longer-term strategy of growing its successful Florida and Bahamas network and its fleet transition strategy that will allow the airline to serve many more markets further into the Caribbean and other destinations from its key hubs with longer range aircraft. 

In addition, we have learned today that Frontier has loaded a schedule showing they are exiting their Miami – Havana route after June 4, 2017.  As a result, Silver is considering re-applying for rights to serve Havana."