Cayo Largo del Sur's spacious airport is underutilized.

Located on a low sandy key along Cuba's south-central coast, Vilo Acuna International Airport (CYO) at Cayo Largo del Sur serves a medium-sized tourist hub whose development has lagged compared to other Cuban resort destinations.

CYO is located at the western end of Cayo Largo, on the only stretch of land here capable of accommodating a 1.9-mile-long airstrip and an entire airport infrastructure relatively far from the beach hotels.

Development at Cayo Largo started nearly 50 years ago, when a pioneering hotel--the current Gran Caribe Isla del Sur--was built to promote tourism for Cubans in the early years of the Castro regime.

However, the hotel never received a single guest and was left to decay for more than two decades as authorities dropped tourism from their list of priorities.

Things changed, however, and today, Cayo Largo del Sur has 1,240 hotel rooms in seven medium and small hotels or villages along the southwestern shoreline. Two of the largest hotels are administered by Spainis Sol Melia.

In November 2001, Hurricane Michelle struck Cayo Largo del Sur, completely destroying the Villa Caprichio hotel as well as some stretches of beach; the island still hasn't recovered completely from the damage.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The international airport--operated by state-run ECASA (Empresa Cubana de Aeropuertos y Servicios Aeronauticos SA)--was built in the 1970s and was originally intended to be a strategic defense airstrip facing the Caribbean Sea close to the middle point of Cuba and just a 30-minute flight from Havana and the Florida Straits.

Although no other major military facilities were built on Cayo Largo, a small staff of civil servants and a limited military garrison kept an eye on the key, which was later used as an inaccessible resort for Cuba's top leadership.

CYO's airstrip measures 9,842 feet long by 148 feet wide. The NE-SW asphalt runway can accommodate the largest transcontinental aircraft. It has four remote standing positions for large jets, just in front of the terminal, plus two more on the old Apron-2 close to the runway's southeastern end.

The airport operates mostly during the day, though authorities claim it can remain open at night. Air-traffic assistance includes non-directional radio beacon, distance measuring and omnidirectional radars.

The airport also has a lighting approach and maneuvering system for night operations. According to official sources, a fire station is scheduled for future construction.

The terminal was designed and built in 1995 by Ottawa-based Intelcan Technosystems to replace an old thatched building too small to serve the airport's needs.

Cayo Largo International can process a maximum 450 to 500 passengers per hour, which seems far beyond its current requirements. The airport provides typical services like food, beverage and retailing for normal and peak capacities. Car rental and travel agencies are also represented.

CYO receives eight international flights per week, mostly from Canada and Western Europe. There's a weekly flight from Buenos Aires and one from Cancun, Mexico. It also gets a daily flight from the Playa de Baracoa airport (UPB) west of Havana, which ferries tourists from the main island.

Landing or taking off from CYO offers passengers an incredible display of striking tropical beauty--shallow emerald waters, coral reefs, blue holes, white-sand beaches, dark green mangrove belts, lagoons and dark-blue deep waters of the Caribbean.

Yet Cayo Largo del Sur isn't a top tourist destination in Cuba--and that's because of its remoteness. Everything in use here, from drinking water to food and gasoline, needs to be transported by air or sea from the mainland. That makes hotel operations more complicated than anywhere else in Cuba.

No Cubans live here permanently. The small town of Isla del Sol, just off the northwestern end of the airstrip, was built in the 1990s to shelter temporary service personnel.

An aerial taxi connects CYO to Nueva Gerona on the Isle of Youth to the west, which is the home of many resort workers and also an alternative destination for vacationers. Executive flights are also chartered to CYO.

Between tourists and temporary Cuban workers, CYO receives anywhere from 50,000 to 75,000 passengers a year. A handful of airlines use the airport, including the domestic Cubana de Aviacion (flights to Havana, Montreal and Buenos Aires) and Aero Caribbean (which flies daily to and from Havana's Playa de Baracoa airport).

CYO also serves Italy's Blue Panorama (Rome and Milan) and Livingston Airlines (Cancun and Milan). Canada's CanJet offers once-a-week flights between Cayo Largo and Montreal. Other airlines using CYO: Air Canada, Germany's Condor and Italy's Neos.

This is the fifth in a series of articles on major Cuban airports. The first, published in our February 2009 issue, looked at the general state of Cuba's air transportation system.

The second article (published in March) featured Santiago de Cuba International, the third (published in April) analyzed Jardines del Rey International Airport on Cayo Coco, and the fourth (published in May) looked at Holguin's Frank Pais International Airport.

BY OUR HAVANA CORRESPONDENT

DISTANCES AND AIR
TRAVEL TIME TO CAYO LARGO
In miles and hours: minutes

UNITED STATES & CANADA

KEY WEST                                178    0:38
MIAMI                                   299    0:49
HOUSTON                                 897    2:12
WASHINGTON D.C.                       1,060    2:33
NEW YORK                              1,208    2:53
TORONTO                               1,327    3:08
OTTAWA                                1,451    3:24
MONTREAL                              1,490    3:29

MEXICO AND THE CARIBBEAN

HAVANA(CUB)                              95    0:27
KINGSTON (JAM)                          348    1:00
SANTO DOMINGO (DR)                      696    1:46
SAN JUAN (PR)                           896    2:12
MEXICO CITY (MEX)                       993    2:25
CARACAS (VEN)                         1,067    2:34

Air travel time at 460 knots speed with 15 min. bias time.

Source: AirRouting.com