First direct flight from Havana to New Orleans opens

Cuba will receive on Saturday the first direct flight between the southern U.S. city of New Orleans and the Cuban capital of Havana in half a century, local media reported on Friday.

The aircraft brings 80 business and community leaders seeking to explore avenues of cooperation between the U.S. and Cuba, according to the official news website Cubadebate.

This is historic as it is the first non-stop flight from New Orleans to Havana since 1958, Cubadebate said.

For years, there have been charter flights from U.S. to Cuba, mainly operating from the cities in the southern Florida state, with "humanitarian" character, as the U.S. economic sanctions imposed in 1962 on the island country prohibited scheduled airline flights.

Cuba and the United States started on Dec. 17 a process to resume diplomatic relations severed in 1961.

Next Monday, they will hold a third round of negotiations on issues regarding the reestablishment of formal ties and the opening of embassies, after two rounds held respectively in January and February. Endit