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I was flying from Canada to Jamaica, and just past Florida the plane turned 90 degrees towards Nassau. It then continued over Cuba. Is this because of the situation between Cuba and the United States? It appears the plane must enter Cuban airspace from international airspace. But I have heard some planes can enter Cuba via corridors from the US. I am confused over this situation.

This was flight TS0373 on 17Jan2016.

flight map

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    $\begingroup$ Why the down-vote? Seems a good ATC question. Mark, do you remember the flight number? $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 8:38

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There are two large warning areas there, W-465 A and B. Both are active "intermittently" up to 70,000ft. It seems likely that the route was taken to avoid those areas.

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When I flew from TEB to Kingston about 15 years ago in a PC-12, we used Jeppesen's international trip planning service to obtain all of the required overflight permits, make landing, customs and fueling arrangements, and provide weather services.

The route we were provided by Jeppesen (which I don't remember exactly now) required airways in non-US airspace, and had specific entry and exit points in Cuban airspace, probably based on that country's radar and separation requirements.

It appears that OP's aircraft flew FOWEE-URUS-UCA-MLY

And as you can see from FlightAware, the KMIA-MKJP route often takes this routing.

So the question is not why did the "the plane turned 90 degrees", but rather why wasn't the plane vectored directly to FOWEE in the first place. The most likely reasons are weather and traffic.

enter image description here.

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    $\begingroup$ And before JUNUS? EONNS and AVION or ELLEE for the horizontal leg of the screenshot. That would make sense if this is to avoid W-465 B as suggested by @Pondlife. Related area on SkyVector. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 17:20

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