A Cuban living in Spain captured on video the scene that any emigrant from the island recognizes instantly: an endless line of passengers and a mountain of suitcases waiting to check in for a flight to Cuba. Elizabeth Cánova shared that recording on her TikTok account with the warning that "if you're not Cuban, you're not prepared for this", and the image immediately resonated with the diaspora.
"This is what traveling to Cuba looks like," the author wrote in the video description, where she also reflected on what those suitcases hold: "Each one carries much more than clothes or gifts. It holds requests, medicines, food, items that are hard to find there, and a little piece of tranquility for those waiting on the other side, even though deep down we know it never suffices."
The scene is neither casual nor exceptional. The supply crisis in Cuba—affecting medicines, food, hygiene products, and household items—turns every trip into a logistical operation.
Cuban emigrants do not travel like conventional tourists: they carry the maximum allowed luggage, filled with requests from family and friends, and each suitcase becomes a bridge between the diaspora and those who remain on the island.
"They say that one can recognize the flight to Cuba even before looking at the airport screen... you just have to look at the mountain of suitcases," Cánova pointed out, encapsulating in one sentence what thousands of Cubans experience every time they go through a Spanish airport.
This practice is so widespread that it has generated tensions at the airports themselves. Since December 2025, Madrid-Barajas has tightened baggage controls on flights to Cuba, prohibiting the so-called "bola bags" — rounded in shape and without a base — due to their incompatibility with automatic check-in systems.
The volume of travelers generated by this phenomenon has a clear demographic explanation. The Cuban community in Spain reached approximately 287,490 people in early 2026, with around 35,200 new arrivals just during 2025, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics.
The main concentrations are found in the Canary Islands, Madrid, and Catalonia, making Spain one of the primary destinations for Cuban emigration and generating a steady flow of travelers returning to the island loaded with essential goods.
Long waits are not exclusive to Spanish airports. At José Martí Airport in Havana, queues of up to seven hours have also been documented for weighing baggage and paying at a single operating counter, highlighting the logistical challenges involved in travel between Cuba and abroad in both directions.
Cuban customs allows the import of up to 25 kg duty-free, and if the contents are exclusively food and medicine, no additional duties are charged even if this limit is exceeded. Nevertheless, excess baggage on flights from Spain can only be paid at the airport —not online— starting January 2026, with rates ranging from 100 to 150 euros per bag.
Cánova concluded his publication with a reflection that encapsulates the experience of an entire generation of emigrants: “Emigrating changes many things, but one thing remains constant: the concern for your loved ones. And as long as that need exists, every journey will continue to feel like a relocation.”
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