What a Way to Go

Airlines flying to Florida offer all kinds of gimmicks to attract the customers, but their advertising has so far failed to note an increasing phenomenon: the free, hijack trip to Cuba. In recent months, seven planes have been hijacked and forced to fly to Havana. Last week, for the third time in a month, it happened again. Five minutes after National Airlines Flight 28 left Tampa Airport bound for Miami, two tipsy Cuban exiles pulled out pistols, forced a stewardess to unlock the pilot's cabin and began shouting at Captain Clarence Delk: "Havana! Havana!

Havana!" Captain Delk changed course and went to Havana.

The latest hijacking was the work of two homesick Cuban exiles who ar rived in Miami last August aboard one of several commercial undercover boats operating out of Florida. A third exile on the plane got cold feet when his companions pulled their guns, but finally accompanied them off the plane when it landed at Havana's Jose Marti Air port. Though a few of the hijackers have been Castroites anxious to get to Cuba, most have been either criminals or emotional misfits. "If a guy has a gun," says Paul Boatman, manager of the Miami office of the Federal Avi ation Agency, "the safest thing in the public interest is to go ahead and take him where he wants to go." As a result, no one has been hurt in any of the hijackings.

Roast Beef & Polite Tours. The Cubans have become so used to the hi jacking that they have worked out a reception for the passengers. They usually photograph them, politely take them on a tour of the air-conditioned airport and shopping area, and offer to let them buy Cuban rum and cigars (which U.S. customs invariably confiscates, since all imports from Cuba are unlawful). If there is time, the passengers may be treated to a free meal; last week's passengers got a roast-beef dinner while waiting nearly seven hours for their plane to take off. Miami Herald Columnist Charles Whited suggested that Castro should stock up on hot dogs and beer, install a couple of slot machines at the airport and cash in on a good thing. As it is, the airport charges a hefty landing and fueling fee; National had to promise to pay nearly $1,000 before its plane was allowed to take off.

Fidel Castro last week paused in the midst of a speech in which he declared the end of all small private industry in

Cuba to take note of the growing little industry of hijacking. "There almost exists," he cracked, "a regular air route for those who take over planes." In a less comic vein, however, he accused the U.S. of keeping Cuban ships and planes used by fleeing refugees, threatened to keep any U.S. planes that are hijacked in the future.

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