Cuba says airlines can no longer refuel on the island as US blockade deepens energy crisis

Cuban avi­a­tion of­fi­cials have warned air­lines that there isn’t enough fu­el for air­planes to re­fu­el on the is­land, the lat­est step in its moves to ra­tion en­er­gy as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion cuts the Caribbean na­tion off from its fu­el re­sources.

The gov­ern­ment of Cu­ba pub­lished the no­tices to air­lines and pi­lots on Sun­day night, warn­ing that jet fu­el won’t be avail­able at nine air­ports across the is­land, in­clud­ing José Martí In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Ha­vana, start­ing Tues­day and con­tin­u­ing un­til March 11.

Po­lit­i­cal pres­sure from U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Latin Amer­i­ca has ef­fec­tive­ly sev­ered Cu­ba’s ac­cess to its pri­ma­ry pe­tro­le­um sources in Venezuela and Mex­i­co.

In late Jan­u­ary, Trump signed an ex­ec­u­tive or­der that would im­pose a tar­iff on any goods from coun­tries that sell or pro­vide oil to Cu­ba, a move that could fur­ther crip­ple an is­land plagued by a deep­en­ing en­er­gy cri­sis.

While the ra­tioning may not dis­rupt short­er re­gion­al flights, it presents a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for long-haul routes from coun­tries like Rus­sia and Cana­da — a crit­i­cal pil­lar of Cu­ba’s tourism econ­o­my.

On Mon­day, Air Cana­da an­nounced it was sus­pend­ing flights to the is­land, while oth­er air­lines an­nounced de­lays and lay­overs in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic be­fore flights con­tin­ued to Ha­vana.

One pi­lot added that while re­fu­elling is­sues have oc­curred be­fore, an of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment of this scale is ex­tra­or­di­nary even for an is­land ac­cus­tomed to per­pet­u­al cri­sis. The last time such cuts oc­curred — more than a decade ago — air­craft bound for Eu­rope re­fu­elled in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas, the pi­lot re­called. Now, re­gion­al air­lines could avoid prob­lems by bring­ing ex­tra fu­el, while oth­ers could re­fu­el in Can­cun, Mex­i­co, or in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

It re­mains un­clear how long the no­tice will re­main in ef­fect and Cuban of­fi­cials have made no pub­lic com­ments on the mat­ter.

The fu­el short­age deals an­oth­er blow to a coun­try that re­lies heav­i­ly on tourism, an in­dus­try that once gen­er­at­ed $3 bil­lion in an­nu­al rev­enue and served as a vi­tal eco­nom­ic life­line.

Cuban of­fi­cials al­so an­nounced Mon­day that bank hours have been re­duced and cul­tur­al events sus­pend­ed. In Ha­vana, the pub­lic bus sys­tem has ef­fec­tive­ly ground to a halt, leav­ing res­i­dents strand­ed as en­dem­ic pow­er out­ages and gru­elling fu­el lines reach a break­ing point.

The en­er­gy emer­gency has forced the sus­pen­sion of ma­jor events like the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Book Fair this week­end and a re­struc­tur­ing of the na­tion­al base­ball sea­son for greater ef­fi­cien­cy. Some banks have cut op­er­at­ing hours, and fu­el dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies said they would no longer sell gas in Cuban pe­sos — and that sales will be made in dol­lars and lim­it­ed to 20 litres (5.28 gal­lons) per user.

The lat­est mea­sures add to oth­ers an­nounced Fri­day, in­clud­ing cuts to bus trans­porta­tion and lim­it­ed train de­par­tures.

On Thurs­day, Cuban Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel de­liv­ered a two-hour tele­vised ad­dress, ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­pact and warn­ing that mea­sures would be tak­en in the com­ing days.

U.S. sanc­tions against Cu­ba have been in place for more than six decades and have long stunt­ed Cu­ba’s econ­o­my. But they reached new ex­tremes af­ter a U.S. mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion de­posed for­mer Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, and Trump be­gan to take an even more con­fronta­tion­al tone to­ward Latin Amer­i­ca.

For many Cubans, the cri­sis has trans­lat­ed in­to pow­er out­ages last­ing up to 10 hours, fu­el short­ages for ve­hi­cles, and a lack of food or med­i­cine that many com­pare to the se­vere eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion in the 1990s known as the Spe­cial Pe­ri­od that fol­lowed cuts in aid from what was then the So­vi­et Union. —HA­VANA (AP)

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Sto­ry by AN­DREA RO­DRÍGUEZ | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Joshua Funk in Om­a­ha, Ne­bras­ka and Megan Janet­sky in Mex­i­co City con­tributed to this re­port.