Silver Airways Inc., a Florida-based operator of turboprop planes, said it put its planned Cuba flights on sale last weekend hoping to be the first airline to begin selling scheduled flights to the island nation in more than 50 years. It intends to operate its first flight Sept. 1.

American Airlines Group Inc. said it put tickets on sale earlier this week and plans to start flying Sept. 7 to two Cuban airports.

Last week, the Transportation Department awarded rights to six U.S. carriers to serve secondary Cuban airports. But it said it would wait until later this summer to apportion airline requests for flights to Havana, because it received three times more requests than the 20 daily flights that are available.

American, the top U.S. airline by traffic, won rights to five secondary Cuban airports from its Miami hub. It plans to use Boeing 737-800s with 160 seats or Airbus A319s with 144 seats and fly one or two times daily. Flights to Cienfuegos and Holguin are scheduled to begin first, on Sept. 7, followed by Santa Clara and Camaguey two days later, then Varadero Airport in Matanzas province on Sept. 11, said an airline spokeswoman.

A flight from Cienfuegos on Sept. 7, returning a week later, cost $488 round trip on American’s website.