#Cuba - An Airlift, Family by Family, Bolsters Cuba's Economy

HAVANA — Alejandrina Hernández packed only light clothes and a makeup bag when she flew here from Miami this spring. As always, she kept her baggage to a minimum.

Jose Goitia for The New York Times

Cuban-Americans and Cubans living abroad are a source of goods and cash for their relatives on the island. Travel to Havana has surged since some travel limits were lifted.

Her own baggage, that is.

Ms. Hernández also brought more than 100 pounds of food, clothes and medicine for her family and other Cubans whose relatives in the United States paid her $8 a pound to ferry gifts.

“I need to see my family, but these trips are very expensive,” said Ms. Hernández, who has returned eight times to see her husband and mother in the past 18 months. “This way, I more or less break even.”

Ms. Hernández is part of a surge in Cuban and Cuban-American visitors from the United States since President Obama lifted travel restrictions in 2009 for those with family here.

Economists and travel agents estimate that 400,000 passengers will fly to Cuba from the United States this year, nearly four times the number in 2008 — and more than at any time since the United States cut ties with the island some 50 years ago, they say. The visitors bring cash and huge bundles stuffed with goods that the embargo and Cuba’s economic woes have put beyond reach, from basics like milk powder, bouillon cubes and vitamins to luxuries like BlackBerrys and flat-screen televisions. Much of it goes into the living rooms and pantries of relatives, or to retailers who operate Cuba’s voracious informal market. 

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