US resumes passenger flights to Cuba

The first scheduled commercial passenger flight from the United States to Cuba in more than half a century landed yesterday, opening another chapter in the Obama administration's efforts to improve ties and increase trade and travel with the former Cold War foe.

A JetBlue Airways Corp passenger jet arrived from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara.  US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and journalists were aboard the 150-seat plane.

US Secretary of State John Kerry noted in a Twitter message that the flight took place just over a year after the raising of the flag at the reopened US embassy in Havana. He called it "another step forward."

Cuba and the United States began normalizing relations in December 2014 after 18 months of secret talks and have since restored full diplomatic ties.

The countries had been hostile for more than five decades, since Fidel Castro ousted US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in a 1959 revolution that steered the island on a communist course and made it a close ally of the Soviet Union.

Until Wednesday, passenger air links between Cuba and the United States were by chartered flights.