New York, February 5 (RHC) -– Starting in March, New Yorkers will be able to hop on a direct flight from JFK airport to Havana, Cuba, for just under $850, DNAinfo reported today.

California-based Cuba Travel Services will start running weekly Tuesday afternoon flights on a 737 out of New York on March 17th for $779, the charter flight company said. The fare will be $849 every week thereafter.

"It’s obviously very, very exciting. The more cities we have connecting the United States to Cuba, the better," said the company's head of marketing, Emily Sanchez. "We’ve been excited to do it for quite a while, we've just been waiting for the right time.

"Culturally speaking, New York and Cuba are so close. We wanted to bridge that gap."

Sanchez also praised the Cuban authorities cooperation with the project, saying that “they were pretty excited and want to make it work."

Travel restrictions are still in effect for Americans so only those who fall into the 12 categories permitted by the U.S. government will be able to book Cuba Travel flights. Those categories include people traveling to Cuba for family visits, to do government work, journalism and several other limited categories.

Cuba Travel already runs about 20 flights a week out of Miami and Tampa.