Cubana de Aviación

Cubana de Aviación is an airline that in Europe you now know almost only from stories and old photos. Yet behind the name stands one of the oldest airlines in Latin America, a fleet of Soviet and Russian types that vanished elsewhere long ago, and a present shaped by embargo, spare parts shortages and fuel scarcity. This page shows you what makes Cubana what it is, which aircraft you can expect and why a sighting has become so rare.

Cubana de Aviación at a glance

Cubana de Aviación is the state airline of Cuba. Its headquarters are in Havana, its main hub is José Martí Airport (HAV); Santiago de Cuba (SCU) in the east of the island serves as a second node. The airline belongs to the state-owned Corporación de la Aviación Civil (CACSA) and is not part of any alliance. It finds partners through individual codeshare agreements, for example with Aeroflot.

The company was founded on October 8, 1929 as Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviación Curtiss – initially as a flight school and charter operation. Cubana flew scheduled service from 1930. In 1932 Pan American took over the company, and the “Curtiss” part of the name was dropped.

Even before the revolution, Cubana operated internationally: according to the Spanish-language Wikipedia, it was the first Hispanic American airline with regular flights to Miami (1945) and to Madrid (1948). In the late 1950s Cubana used Bristol Britannia turboprops, including to New York and Madrid.

Codes and callsigns

• IATA code CU: appears in the flight number, on the departure board and on the ticket.
• ICAO code CUB: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers when Cubana itself operates.
• Callsign CUBANA: this is how the crew calls in on the radio.

With Cubana in particular, the difference between the flight number and the operating airline matters. In recent years many routes ran with leased aircraft including crew – known in the trade as wet lease. The tracker then often shows the partner’s code, even though the passengers booked a CU flight. How the principle works is explained in the article Wet lease explained, and the logic behind the abbreviations is covered in IATA and ICAO codes explained.

History: from Pan Am to state airline

After the revolution, the new government took control of Cubana in May 1959 and expropriated the previous shareholders. Private airlines and cargo operators were merged into it; from June 27, 1961 the company operated as Empresa Consolidada Cubana de Aviación. With the break in relations with the US in 1961 and the embargo from 1962, flights to the United States ended.

The political realignment also showed in the route network. From 1961 Cubana flew to Prague, and through a cooperation with the East German airline Interflug, East Berlin was also connected to Cuba. If you want to read up on the East German side of these connections, you will find it in the magazine article on Interflug. Around 1990 the European network included Paris, Basel and Berlin, among others. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s Cubana even flew to Iraq.

Two accidents mark the history in particular. On October 6, 1976, two bombs exploded aboard a Douglas DC-8 shortly after takeoff from Barbados; all 73 people on board died. A group of militant Cuban exiles is held responsible. On September 3, 1989, an Ilyushin Il-62M crashed shortly after takeoff from Havana – it was on a charter flight to Cologne/Bonn and Milan. In total 150 people died, 24 of them on the ground. It is the worst aviation accident ever to occur in Cuba.

The fleet: Soviet classics and Russian successors

From the 1960s the fleet was switched almost entirely to Soviet types. They included the Il-14, Il-18, An-12, An-24, Yak-40, Yak-42, Tupolev Tu-154, Il-76 and above all the four-engine Ilyushin Il-62M, which Cubana used on international routes long after the end of the Soviet Union. In March 1990 the fleet included eleven Il-62Ms, eight Tu-154s, twelve An-24RVs and 26 An-26s, among others – a picture that looks like a museum today. Background on these types is provided by the overview of Soviet airliners.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cubana had to improvise for many years. A new generation of Russian aircraft only arrived from the mid-2000s:

Type	Deliveries from	Use	Status (cautious, as of 2026)
Ilyushin Il-96-300	December 2005	Long-haul, formerly including Europe and South America	A few examples, only one active at the end of 2024
Tupolev Tu-204	2007	Medium-haul, plus one freighter	Unclear, partly reported as retired in 2025
Antonov An-158	April 2013	Regional and Caribbean routes	In storage since 2018
ATR 72-200	–	Domestic flights	A few examples

The Il-96-300 is the star of the fleet. The Cuban state newspaper Granma reported the first official scheduled flight with the type in January 2006 – it went from Havana to Buenos Aires. In 2015 Cubana additionally bought a used Il-96 from Aeroflot. Today Cubana is the last airline operating the type in commercial passenger service. According to available fleet data, however, only one Il-96 was operational at the end of 2024, and three more were on the ground.

The An-158 – a stretched variant of the An-148 – was meant as a modernization of the regional fleet. According to consistent reports, the aircraft have been idle since 2018 because of maintenance problems. Whether the Tu-204 still flies is unclear; domestically it is mainly the ATR turboprops that keep operations going; manufacturer background is available at Tupolev, Antonov, ATR and the Russian United Aircraft Corporation, to which Tupolev and Ilyushin belong today.

Leased aircraft: Cubana without a Cubana jet

Because its own fleet is not enough, Cubana has repeatedly leased aircraft including crew. For spotters this means: behind a CU flight number there can be an Airbus or Boeing of a completely different airline.

How risky this model can be was shown on May 18, 2018. A 39-year-old Boeing 737-200 of the Mexican charter company Global Air crashed as Cubana flight 972 shortly after takeoff from Havana toward Holguín; 112 people died. The Cuban investigation found a chain of errors with a predominantly human factor, including incorrect calculations of weight and center of gravity. The Mexican aviation authority subsequently suspended Global Air’s operations.

On the route to Spain, Cubana most recently worked with Plus Ultra. For summer 2026 Cubana announced only a weekly connection from Madrid via Santiago de Cuba to Havana. Effective May 12, 2026, this route was also canceled because Plus Ultra, as the operating airline, had suspended the flights. Other state airlines in the region follow similar paths – for example Conviasa from Venezuela, which also flies under sanctions.

Cubana in crisis: fuel and embargo

For some years now Cubana has been struggling with problems that go beyond the aging fleet. The US embargo makes access to Western aircraft and spare parts difficult; since the war in Ukraine, the supply of Russian parts has also become harder. On top of that comes the fuel shortage on the island: in 2024 flights to Argentina ended after Cubana could no longer get jet fuel there.

In 2026 the situation worsened further. Since early February 2026, Jet A-1 has been scarce at Cuban airports; some airlines therefore make fuel stops in the Caribbean. Several foreign companies have reduced or suspended their Cuba flights – Iberia, for example, announced a temporary pause from June in April 2026, while Air Europa has continued to serve the Madrid–Havana route with a fuel stop on the return leg. According to available information, Cubana itself operates only a very small route network.

How to recognize Cubana

Cubana aircraft have a white fuselage with the “Cubana” titles; the colors of the Cuban flag appear on the tail. The surest feature, however, is the registration: Cuban airliners are registered with the prefix CU-, and Cubana jets usually carry registrations following the pattern CU-T plus four digits. How such prefixes are structured is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

For types, the silhouette helps. The Il-96-300 is a widebody jet with four engines under the wings – at first glance it resembles an Airbus A340, but looks stubbier. The older Il-62M, by contrast, had four engines in pairs at the rear and a T-tail. The Tu-204 is a twinjet narrowbody with winglets that from a distance resembles a Boeing 757. You recognize the ATR 72 as a high-wing aircraft with two turboprop engines.

Cubana for spotters in Europe

In Europe, Cubana is among the real rarities. For a long time Madrid-Barajas was the most important European destination airport; Il-62Ms and Il-96s from Havana used to land here too. If you are in Madrid, the La Muñoza spot is a good choice for photographing long-haul traffic from Latin America – even if Cubana itself is not currently on the schedule there.

Prague and Berlin are also historically exciting: in both cities Cubana aircraft were regular visitors in the days of the Eastern Bloc. Today you are left mainly with archive photos and museum visits. And at Cologne/Bonn Airport, the story of the 1989 charter flight is a reminder that Cubana once also served vacation traffic to Germany.

For your collection: a Cubana Il-96 counts today among the rarest sightings in scheduled service. If you catch one, it is best to document registration, date and location cleanly.

Common mix-ups

• Taking every CU flight number for a Cubana jet – often a leasing partner flies with its own aircraft.
• Confusing the Il-96 and the Airbus A340 – both have four engines under the wings, but the Il-96-300 is noticeably shorter than the common A340 versions.
• Taking the Tu-204 for a Boeing 757 – similar proportions, but different landing gear and typically Russian details.
• Equating the An-158 with the An-148 – the An-158 is the stretched version with more seats.
• Logging Aerogaviota as Cubana – Aerogaviota is part of Cubana’s environment, but operates under its own name.
• Taking CU for a country code – in the registration yes, in the flight number CU is the airline’s IATA code.

Conclusion

Cubana de Aviación combines almost a century of aviation history with a present full of bottlenecks. From the Pan Am years through the Il-62M era to the last Il-96 in passenger service, the airline offers material for anyone interested in unusual fleets. At the same time it shows how quickly an airline without spare parts and fuel loses importance. For spotters the rule is: check the registration and ICAO code carefully – only then is a Cubana sighting really one.