§515.548 Overflight payments, emergency landings, and air ambulance services authorized.
(a) The receipt of, and payment of charges for, services rendered by Cuba or a Cuban national in connection with overflights of Cuba or emergency landings in Cuba by aircraft registered in the United States or owned or controlled by, or chartered to, persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are authorized.
(b) Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are authorized to engage in all transactions necessary to provide air ambulance and related medical services, including medical evacuation from Cuba, for individual travelers in Cuba, regardless of nationality or the purpose of the individual's travel to Cuba.
Note to paragraph (b): Persons providing air ambulance services authorized by paragraph (b) are authorized to carry persons who are close relatives, as defined in §515.539, of the subject of the evacuation.
[80 FR 56921, Sept. 21, 2015]
1) Compare ITSR and SySR analogues (560.522 and 542.518).
2) The existence of this GL suggests that OFAC does not consider overflights of U.S.-related aircraft to be "ordinarily incident" to travel, and therefore exempt from regulation. If overflights themselves were exempt, payments for overflights would also be exempt. See Civil Enforcement Information - Spirit Airlines, Inc (2008) for overflight-related enforcement action. The same is true of air ambulance services. What the GL does not clarify, however, is whether overflights of a sanctioned destination are necessarily within the scope of OFAC's jurisdiction to begin with, presuming that no "services" are received in connection with the overflight.
3) [RESERVED]
3) The scope of this GL is somewhat confusing on the question of transactions ancillary to underlying transactions not subject to the sanctions regulations.
May a U.S. person parent airline "approve" (i.e. facilitate) an overflight payment of a non-U.S. person subsidiary within the scope of this license where the aircraft has nothing to do with the U.S.? It depends on whether the "aircraft [being] registered in the United States or owned or controlled by, or chartered to, persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction" contains any conditions for use of the license. Facilitation of a transaction by a foreign person in which a U.S. person could engage directly is not "prohibited facilitation," but it is not clear whether the aircraft actually being connected to the U.S. is a condition of the GL or merely a set of conditions that would allow OFAC to assert jurisdiction over the transaction in the first place. The latter seems more likely, but this GL is irregular. See General Note on Sanctions Provisions for which Determining Applicability Requires "Counterfactual" Analysis of Transactions (System Ed. Note).
4) Concerning the applicability of sanctions regulations to vessels and aircraft on the basis of their registration and/or operational control by U.S. persons, see General Note on OFAC’s Assertion of Worldwide Jurisdiction over non-U.S. Origin Vessels and Aircraft with Certain Relationships to the United States (System Ed. Note).