Some concern has been raised over the recent admission by TSA that the current flights to Cuba do not have any air marshals on board. The job of the air marshal is essentially to prevent terrorist attacks, which is a reasonable concern.
Flights from the U.S. mainland to Cuba just restarted for the first time in 50 years, which kicked off with a JetBlue flight on August 31.
American Airlines has also started scheduling flights into ten different cities in Cuba, which could be up to 110 different flights each day. Initially TSA has said that an agreement with air marshals would be necessary to begin the flights, but now they are admitting that this was not the case.
There seemed to be some miscommunication between explaining the procedures for the regular flights versus the charter flights.
The TSA Deputy Administrator Huban Gowadia explained that Cuba hasn’t signed the agreement yet, but that they should.
“We need the partnership of our international colleagues — our nation-state partners, the airlines, the airports. And we must continue to work with them in a collaborative way so that we can negotiate those agreements, share the right kinds of information and be able to raise the level of security across the globe. That desire is constant between you and us.”
