Spotlight Capital Holdings Inc (SLCH)

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DD on the Cuban Carrier Service Provider Application

because, seriously, we need something to get excited about around here lately.

PR:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AvStar-Aviation-Group-Inc-prnews-2151341848.html?cmtnav=/mwphucmtgetnojspage/headcontent/main/2151341848//date/asc/1/0

The U.S. government on Thursday (this is back in March of '11) gave authorization to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to handle direct flights to Cuba.

Before this summer a passenger could only fly directly to Cuba from NY, LA, and obviously MIA

Service to Cuba will not be regular commercial service, but rather one of charter flights through an air company based in Coral Gables, which would supply two flights per week beginning this spring or at the start of the summer, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International spokesman Greg Meyer said in an e-mail to Efe.

Airline Brokers Co., Inc., which has a license issued by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control to handle flights to the Caribbean island, said that it would be interested in immediately beginning the service if the South Florida airport were to obtain authorization.

But instead, it will kick off with flights once a week departing Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., using an A320 aircraft operated by JetBlue Airways.

Plans call for expanding to twice-a-week service later, pending approval from Cuban authorities, said Airline Brokers President Vivian Mannerud.

So only competition at the whole airport is one airline that currently flies once a week? how many competing airlines fly to the Bahamas out of Fort Lauderdale? I'd wager way more than one... and on a daily basis.

Gotta like that.

FWIW, Airline Brokers flies a 150 seat plane to Havana while AAVG has smaller.... 20 or 30 seat planes? Maybe Twin Air uses the Bahamas as a quick layover and flies to one of the more eastern cities, like Santa Clara, or Guantanamo Bay
- I hear they got a first class resort there and "the help" all speak English.
Then they would have a nitch with no competition.

Airline Brokers charged $35 to check a first bag and $45 for a second bag of up to 70 pounds in Fort Lauderdale. In Miami, on a different charter company, he gets the first 44 pounds free.

"We paid $235 for baggage. That's at least $35 more than we'd pay in Miami,"

Maybe we could gain an edge by not raping passengers w/ baggage fees?

Airline brokers flew it's inaugural flight just ten days ago.

"I'm happy," said Ramos, before boarding Flight 8605 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. "To get here took me just 15 minutes. To Miami, it's about an hour. And this airport is more peaceful, less noisy. Plus, the treatment today for this first flight — it was magnificent, so original."

She also chose the Fort Lauderdale charter because of its price: $30 cheaper than Miami fares. The cost was $379 round-trip per person.

Sounds to me like these Fort Lauderdale flights will be a very popular option for Cuban American travelers. And $379 per person is a lot more than the spprox $160 Twin Air charges for it's PAC deal. (Although Havana is further away in comparison to Abaco) Getting this Cuban commuter status will help push the revenues for sure.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2011/03/11/2-florida-airports-approved-flights-cuba/
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-09-17/business/fl-cuba-charter-launch-20110917_1_vivian-mannerud-cuban-american-jetblue
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/charter-flights-from-fort-lauderdale-to-cuba-start-1828119.html

Finally: the office of foreign assets control's list of authorized air services providers to cuba -- http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_tsp.pdf

There's about 400 different providers, some fly people, some fly freight and mail, many do both. I don't know what the application's criteria are, but the current administration is pursuing a more normalized relationship w/ Cuba so that can only help our chances imo.

Been a little concerned since that Sept 20th PR/dump (Still confused about that), so I felt like digging up something positive I didn't yet know about this company or its commercial sector, and share it w/ the group.

GLTA the longs here.