Among the fiascos illustrating the lacking investment in infrastructure affecting the whole country, in
August 2017, a section of the runway in the take-off area of Terminal 3 of the International Airport in
Havana sunk and caused delays in departures of flights mainly to Europe and aircraft deviations to
Varadero. Negligence and neglect by state authorities and wanting oversight and attention to safety are
pervasive. This results in a very high number of fatalities also affecting Cuba’s roads, collapsing residential
structures, workplaces, and healthcare facilities
At least two big corruption scandals have surfaced in recent years in Cuba’s civil aviation. In 2011, 16
individuals were sentenced to 3 to 15 years of prison, including a high-ranking and historic General who
was head of Cuba’s Civil Aviation Institute, employees of Cubana de Aviación, and the Chilean partner of
a Cuba-Chile tourism joint venture. In 2014, at least 13 officials of the state-controlled companies
Aviaimport S.A, dedicated to importing parts tor civil aviation, and Cuba’s Company of Airports and
Services, ECASA, were arrested.
The Castro family and Cuba’s top leadership appear unaffected by the aviation crisis. They have always
enjoyed exclusive air and land transportation in luxury fleets with first-class service. Luis Dominguez, of
CubaalDescubierto.com, provided Cuba Archive evidence of the three fully-equipped top-of-the-line long-
range business jets built by the French firm Dassault Aviation with a capacity of around 14 people. Each
cost approximately $45 million to $30 million, are kept in special hangars and were put in service in 2006
for the sole use of Cuba’s top leadership and their families. Several Cubana de Aviación and military pilots
were reportedly assigned to this fleet and sent to train in France and Venezuela. Since 2015, Raúl Castro
(Secretary General of Cuba’s Communist Party and until recently President of Cuba) has traveled to
Panama and Caribbean island-nations with the entire fleet of planes, one carrying one of his armored
BMW 760s (costing an estimated $350 thousand each). His children and grandchildren also use the planes
to travel internationally for personal purposes. Raúl also usually travels by helicopter each weekend to
Varadero beach or the northern keys (in 2016, Cuba purchased two helicopters from the Kazan Helicopter
plant Russia) and uses a Cubana IL96300 plane to travel abroad, forcing scheduled domestic flights to be
canceled.
The jets have been and appear to remain registered to a Venezuelan company, probably to avoid
problems with U.S. sanctions when traveling internationally. It is not known how Cuba paid for the jets or
if a cooperation arrangement was made with Venezuela, but Venezuelan presidents, the late Hugo Chavez
and the current Nicolás Maduro, have flown to Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and other countries in Cubana
aircraft (presumably, affecting the airline’s scheduled flights). In 2013, Maduro even attempted, according
to Spanish media, to use the Cubana plane he took on an official visit to China to enter Cubans illegally in
the U.S. with fake Venezuelan passports using the pretext of a visit to the United Nations in New York.
Excessive and exclusive privileges for Cuba’s top leadership, especially the Castro family, have been the
norm during the Communist regime. Dominguez explains that already in the earliest days of the
revolution, an executive military unit was created at the Baracoa Beach Airport equipped with at least 3
aircraft and 4 helicopters for the air transport of the Castro brothers and their relatives. Enrique García, a
high-ranking officer and defector from Cuba intelligence who organized Fidel Castro’s trip to Ecuador in
August 1988, reports that two large Cubana airplanes were used for this 5-day trip, transporting a 500-
man security detail, Fidel’s personal housekeeping staff and cooks, an exact copy of his bedroom set, all
the food and water he would consume and even brush his teeth with, as well as a large load of armament
for his defense. Many other former regime insiders, such as Brigade General Rafael del Pino, Second in
Command of Cuba’s Air Force until his defection to the U.S. in 1987, have reported similar accounts that
extend to multiple homes, ranches, even an island, for the exclusive use of the Castro family.