Moni Basu - Staff
 
                 At the start of June, about 150 Georgians will march down a jetway at Hartsfield
                 International Airport and enter a Delta Air Lines plane that will carry them to
                 Cuba.

                 Federal regulations will require the plane to stop in Miami, one of three U.S.
                 cities from which chartered flights to the Communist island can take off. The
                 flight, operated by a private travel company, will then journey southward,
                 delivering its passengers to Havana's Jose Marti Airport.

                 A year after former President Carter's historic tour of Cuba, the Georgians on this
                 trip, too, will mark a couple of firsts.

                 They will form what is believed to be the largest statewide delegation
                 representing a wide spectrum of fields --- education, health, agriculture, urban
                 planning and Afro-Cuban traditions --- to visit Cuba. It will also be first time that a
                 Delta jet will leave Atlanta with the Cuban capital as its final destination.

                 Organizers hail the trip as a prelude to the day when planes can fly nonstop
                 between Atlanta and Havana.

                 "When normalization takes place between the United States and Cuba ---
                 whether it's in two months or 10 years --- we want to make sure Georgia is in a
                 position to be a major gateway to Cuba," said George Brown, executive director
                 of the Georgia Council for International Visitors, the agency organizing the
                 Georgia-to-Cuba Citizen Exchange 2003.

                 Promotion of Georgia's Cuba connections is not new. Long before Carter set foot
                 in Cuba, Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin aggressively pursued business
                 possibilities. Last September, Georgia sent the fourth-largest delegation to an
                 agribusiness expo in Havana that secured $7 million in sales for 18 Georgia
                 lumber, poultry and other agricultural companies.

                 But the movement has gathered steam in recent months with Atlanta's bid for
                 the headquarters of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, scheduled to
                 come into being in 2005.

                 Burnishing the image

                 The city and state are keen to project Atlanta's image as a gateway for the
                 Americas.

                 "A nonstop route between Atlanta and Havana would foster that," said Carlos
                 Martel, deputy commissioner in the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and
                 Tourism.

                 The potential of an opened-up Cuban market is attractive to the airlines as well.
                 Bob Guild, program director for Marazul Charters, Inc., the company flying the
                 Georgia delegation, said the major airlines are "itching" to get to the Cuban
                 market.

                 "All the airlines are trying to get in position to send regular flights to Cuba one
                 day," Guild said. "Anyone who is in the market now is thinking about the future."

                 Delta began providing planes for Marazul flights from New York in December.
                 Several state and city officials would like to see similar flights from Atlanta one
                 day.

                 "It appears that Cuba is becoming more and more open to trade with the world,"
                 said Hans Gant, senior vice president of economic development for the Metro
                 Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. "The fact that the state of Georgia and others
                 are working to identify opportunities is the right step."

                 The United States imposed its embargo on Cuba some four decades ago, during
                 the Cold War. That included a ban on travel to the land of Fidel Castro. During
                 Carter's years in the White House, travel restrictions were eased for
                 humanitarian reasons, but new limits were imposed under the Reagan
                 administration.

                 But since 1999, when travel regulations were again relaxed, thousands of
                 passengers have boarded chartered flights from the three government-sanctioned
                 gateways --- Miami, New York and Los Angeles --- and flown to Cuba.

                 About 176,000 people visited Cuba in 2002, although 25,000 went through third
                 countries without authorization, said John S. Kavulich II, president of the
                 U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

                 Ninety percent were people of Cuban descent who wanted to visit relatives. A
                 recent Miami Herald poll showed a surprisingly high 49 percent of
                 Cuban-Americans or Cuban exiles favor lifting the restrictions on travel to Cuba.

                 But more and more Americans are traveling to Cuba under special licenses for
                 business, educational or cultural reasons.

                 In December alone, Marazul operated 150 flights from Miami to Cuba.
                 Expenditures related to Cuba travel amounts to $20 million a year for Miami's
                 airport, Kavulich said.

                 Airlines cannot provide flights to Cuba because the United States and Cuba do
                 not have bilateral landing agreements. But charter companies, operating under a
                 license from the Treasury Department, fly regularly. Some use 19-seat
                 Beechcrafts. Others use Boeing jets owned by the major airlines.

                 Gateway status eyed

                 Miami used to be the only airport authorized for chartered flights to Cuba. In
                 1999, the Clinton administration announced it would add two gateways. At that
                 time, Atlanta made a bid for a slot, but lost to Los Angeles and New York's
                 Kennedy Airport.

                 The decision was based on a "study of demand, demographics, and the
                 availability of U.S. Customs and Immigration and Naturalization Service
                 personnel to process flights," according to the Treasury Department's Office of
                 Foreign Assets Control.

                 The government has no plans to add a fourth slot soon, but if it did, Atlanta
                 would surely vie for it --- along with Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and New
                 Orleans, cities that have been heavily promoting themselves for the Cuban
                 market.

                 Large Cuban populations determined previous gateways, but in the future, a city
                 that has high air traffic or heavy trade ties with Cuba might be considered, said
                 Jorge L. Fernandez, director of Delta's Latin America/Caribbean region.

                 "I believe Atlanta's chances in the future are good," he said.

                 Brown hopes the upcoming trip will help make those chances better. Thirteen
                 years ago, Brown and a planeload of Georgians flew to Tbilisi in the former Soviet
                 Union as part of a historic citizen exchange. Months later, the U.S.S.R.
                 disintegrated, and Tbilisi and Atlanta enjoyed a new relationship as sister cities.

                 "Looking back, having that Georgia-to-Georgia exchange created a foundation so
                 that when the Soviet Union fell, things could happen," Brown said. "What we
                 don't know is when the door will open to Cuba. We applied for a one-time license
                 for a cultural exchange.

                 "If you look at state of U.S.-Soviet relations in the early 1980s and jump forward
                 to relations today, you have to ask: Are we at a comparable stage with Cuban
                 relations?" Brown said. "The dream here is that this kind of exchange could lay a
                 similar foundation. The timing seems right."