Historic commercial flight from U.S. lands in Cuba

(latimes) - The first commercial flight between the United States and Cuba in more than half a century landed in the central city of Santa Clara on Wednesday morning, reestablishing regular air service severed at the height of the Cold War.

JetBlue Flight 387 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., opens a new era of U.S.-Cuba travel, with about 300 flights a week expected to connect the U.S. with an island cut off from most Americans by the 55-year-old trade embargo on Cuba and formal ban on U.S. citizens engaging in tourism on the island.

"Seeing the American airlines landing routinely around the island will drive a sense of openness, integration and normality. That has a huge psychological impact," said Richard Feinberg, author of the new book "Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy."

The restart of commercial travel between the two countries is one of the most important steps in President Obama's 2-year-old policy of normalizing relations with the island. Historians disagree on the exact date of the last commercial flight but it appears to have been after Cuba banned incoming flights during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry said on Twitter that the last commercial flight was in 1961.