“This is the situation in Cuba. Tossed out like animals outside the airport. No airline is attending to these people...”, a tourist with a foreign accent can be heard saying in a 17-second video that began circulating on social media on Friday night and has gone viral in recent hours.
The images show hundreds of travelers with their luggage crowded outside Terminal 3 of José Martí International Airport, unable to access the interior of the building.
The activist Lara Crofs shared the material stating that “foreign and local tourists are stranded outside José Martí International Airport, Terminal 3, at this hour of the night, with no accurate information about what will happen with their flights.”
In another post, activist Irma Broek shared the same video and presented it as a report from a tourist “about the current situation at José Martí International Airport.”
According to various publications accompanying the clip, the incident took place on the night of August 9th.
In recent hours, a growing number of profiles on Facebook have posted the images.
However, no specific explanations regarding what happened have emerged.
The images, however, have enabled hundreds of Cubans in various forums to express their frustration over the country's shortages, poor management of all types of services, and the deterioration of infrastructure.
Others have found the perfect evidence of why international tourism increasingly avoids Cuba as a destination.
Many pointed out that scenes like this are “bad publicity” for the island, showing a system that is incapable of ensuring dignified treatment even for those who come to bring in foreign currency.
Among the hundreds of comments, criticisms of the regime and calls not to travel to the island have prevailed.
“#NoTravelToCuba”, “Keep visiting Cuba, not even that they can guarantee” or “Take a good look at this news… the dictatorship is working very hard to end tourism”, are some of them.
Others refer to previous experiences and normalize the situation: "In Cuba, it's always like this; you can't enter until boarding time," or "Twenty years ago, I went to see my mom off, and it was the same."
There has also been room for irony and dark humor: "Are they going to sell chicken?", "Did they sell the planes their tires or their wings???", and "CUBA AWAITS YOU… now it says: WHAT AWAITS YOU IS CUBA!".
Until the closing of this note, the doubt remains. There is no confirmation or official explanation regarding what happened; there are also no denials.
Neither the Minister of Transportation Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, nor the official Facebook profiles of the Airport or Empresa Cubana de Aeropuertos y Servicios Aeroportuarios S.A. have commented on the images.
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