US airline fined for blockade violation
Campaign News | Monday, 30 June 2008
The biggest US private airline, Spirit
Airlines, has been fined $100,000 by the US federal government for violating Washington’s economic blockade of Cuba.
According to Granma news daily, a report by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) indicates the airline made payments to the Cuban
government for the use of its airspace without the necessary US license between September 2004 and March 2007.
Civil aviation regulations related to international flights establish this kind of payment but, in the case of US companies, they require a special license from the US Treasury Department due to the economic, financial and trade blockade imposed by Washington on Cuba for almost five decades.
Spirit is the second company in Florida fined this year for violating this blockade. The first was Bank Atlantic, in Fort Lauderdale, which
received a $7,500 fine last February.
Other companies recently fined include: United Radio, based in Florence, Kentucky, ($67,574); and Sonida International, in Forest Hills, New York ($2,400).
