José Martí International Airport
José Martí International Airport
José Martí International Airport (IATA: HAV, ICAO: MUHA; Spanish: Aeropuerto Internacional José Martí), sometimes known by its former name Rancho Boyeros Airport (Aeropuerto de Rancho Boyeros), is an international airport located in the municipality of Boyeros, 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of the centre of Havana, Cuba, and is a hub for Cubana de Aviación and Aerogaviota, and former Latin American hub for the Soviet (later Russian) airline Aeroflot. It is Cuba's main international airport, and serves several million passengers each year. The facility is operated by Empresa Cubana de Aeropuertos y Servicios Aeronáuticos (ECASA). The airport lies in the municipality of Boyeros and connects Havana with the rest of the Caribbean, North, Central and South America, as well as Europe. It is named in memory of patriot and poet José Martí. Private Cuban citizens are not allowed to own aircraft; all aircraft in Cuba belong to state-owned airlines or the military. Only government and foreign-owned aircraft are allowed to use the facilities. As of 2020, Copa Airlines was the foreign airline with most flights to the airport, operating 34 flights a week (roughly five daily flights) from Panama City, Panama, and Bogotá, Colombia.
Location
22.989°N, 82.409°O · 64 m s. n. m. (210 ft)
General data
Runways · 1
Lengths and surfaces from the public OurAirports register; open runways only.
Radio frequencies · 5
Tower
Ground
ATIS (automatic information)
Approach
Common traffic (CTAF)
Reference frequencies for enthusiasts, from OurAirports (community database, public domain), checked on Oct 16, 2026. They may be outdated or incomplete and do not replace the AIP or current charts: not for navigation. In Europe the published frequency may be an 8.33 kHz channel (e.g., 118.505 for 118.500). In MHz.
History
Foundation and early years
The current José Martí Airport in 1930 replaced the Columbia Airfield, which was the first airport to serve Havana. The original name of the airport, Rancho Boyeros, meaning the "(Bull) Drover Ranch", was in reference to the name of the plains where the airport was being built. It was known as the Rancho Boyeros because in colonial times a local family had built a thatched hut and provided meals and an inn to the weary drovers that brought agricultural products to the capital from Batabanó and Vuelta Abajo. To give a progressive environment to the airport, the old ranch homes were transformed into a small town that would serve as an industrial, livestock, agriculture and commercial centre, rising comfortable homes, an industrial technical school, a paint factory and other facilities. The town today is known as the Boyeros Municipality.
The construction of José Martí Airport, formerly Rancho Boyeros Airport, was authorized in March 1929 by General Order No. 223. On 24 February 1930, the airport opened, replacing the former Ciudad Libertad Airport. On 30 October of the same year, the first flight by Cubana de Aviación (formerly Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviación Curtiss) from Havana to Santiago de Cuba carried the mail on a Ford Trimotor with stops in Santa Clara, Morón and Camagüey. Flights to Madrid started in 1936 with a Lockheed Sirius named 4 September, commanded by Capt. Antonio Menéndez Pélaez. She was flown via Venezuela, Natal, Brazil, and Dakar, Senegal.
By January 1943 the airport had its first control tower, the first in the country. vIn 1945, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was formed in Havana. Cubana's first international flight out of the airport was a Douglas DC-3 to Miami on 15 May of the same year. The first transatlantic flight from any Latin American country to Europe took place in 1946 from Havana to Madrid on a Douglas DC-4, operated by Aerovias Cubanas Internacionales (Cunnair), founded by Cuban pioneer Reinaldo Ramirez Rosell. On 2 April 1950 the airport received a second route to Europe with flights to Rome on a Cubana de Aviación DC-4. The first night flight landed at the airport from Santiago de Cuba with a Douglas DC-3 in 1951. The first route to Mexico City was inaugurated in 1953 by Cubana, utilizing a Lockheed Constellation.
Embargoes since the 1960s
In 1961, diplomatic relations with the United States deteriorated substantially and with the United States embargo against Cuba, airlines from the United States were not permitted to operate regular scheduled flights to the airport. That year, two days prior to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion organized by the CIA with the participation of Cuban exiles, Douglas A-26 Invader aircraft from Brigade 2506 bombarded José Martí Airport and Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago de Cuba.
Because of Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union, the airport during the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed the presence of many Eastern Bloc airline companies, such as Aeroflot, Czechoslovak Airlines, Interflug, and LOT Polish Airlines. In 1977 an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62 operating a scheduled flight from Moscow to Havana via Frankfurt and Lisbon crashed after takeoff from Lisbon, killing 68 of the 70 on board and one person on the ground.
In 1988, Terminal 2 was constructed in anticipation of future charter flights to the United States. In the 1990s the special charter flights were approved by the US government, to operate from Miami for Cuban citizens living in the United States that have close relatives in Cuba. Today, various airlines operate non-stop scheduled charter service between Havana and Miami. On 31 December 1997 a Concorde landed in Cuba for the first time, landing at José Martí Airport. The London-Paris-Barbados-Havana Air France flight was received at the airport by Fidel Castro, who boarded the aircraft and greeted the crew and passengers. On 26 April the following year, the new International Terminal 3 was inaugurated by Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Cuba's President Fidel Castro.
Development in the 2000s
In 2002 Air Freight Logistics Enterprise (ELCA S.A.) opened José Martí's first freight terminal known as the Aerovaradero Freight Terminal. The terminal has a 600 t (590 long tons; 660 short tons) capacity, 2,000 m3 (71,000 cu ft) of space in two refrigeration and freezing chambers, with humidity and gas controls.
In 2007, three young recruits who deserted from the Cuban Army tried to hijack a commercial passenger aircraft aiming to defect to the United States. At Terminal 1, the would-be hijackers killed one of the hostages, a lieutenant colonel. Terminal 2 was remodeled and expanded in 2010.
Special charter service to the United States were allowed from the 1990s, but were required to be operated by travel companies licensed by the U.S. government, largely from Florida. In March 2015, Sun Country Airlines started operating regularly scheduled charter flights from New York during the Cuban Thaw. Delta resumed its flights to New Orleans in March 2015, after not flying the route for over 50 years.
Airlines operating here · 22
Other airlines with direct routes
Airlines with current passenger routes from here, according to Wikipedia route tables cross-checked from both ends (October 2026).
Photo: AlbertRA · CC BY-SA 4.0 · view original
Data from OurAirports (public domain) · destinations and airlines from Wikipedia route tables (CC BY-SA, 2026), unless another source is given · profile and photo from Wikidata/Wikimedia Commons (CC0 / CC) · summary and history from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Cite
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This page was last updated on October 15, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 15). José Martí International Airport (HAV). Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV
MLA
“José Martí International Airport (HAV).” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 15 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “José Martí International Airport (HAV).” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 15, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) José Martí International Airport (HAV). Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV (Accessed: 16 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_airport_hav,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{José Martí International Airport (HAV)}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-15},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV}},
urldate = {2026-10-16},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/HAV |title=José Martí International Airport (HAV) |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-15 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}