History of Cubana de Aviación of its fleet, opting to replace its long-range piston-prop Super Constellations with turboprop aircraft, and to expand its existing Vickers Viscount turboprop fleet in the immediate future. Cubana placed orders for four long-range Bristol Britannia (Model 318) and four Vickers Super Viscount (VV-818) aircraft, all turboprops, for its international services (which included Madrid, New York, Mexico City, Miami, Montego Bay, Nassau, Port-au-Prince), and for some of its domestic routes (Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, Varadero). The first Bristol Britannia (CU-T668) was delivered in late 1958, and was placed in service in the airline's New York route. The new Britannias and Super
Vickers Viscount the Vickers Vanguard. The Vanguard drew extensively from the knowledge and design of the Viscount, and likewise maintained its advantage of lower operating costs over pure jet-powered aircraft, but its disadvantage in being slower than jet aircraft became increasingly critical as jets became more available over time. Regular passenger flights were launched by BEA in 18 April 1953, the world's first scheduled turboprop airline service. BEA became a large user of the Viscount, as well the rival Handley Page Dart Herald; by mid-1958 BEA's Viscount fleet had carried over 2.75 million passengers over 200,000 flight hours. Following BEA's launch of