The Dominican Airlines Association (ADLA), which brings together Air Century, GECA Servicios Aéreos, Helidosa, SAP, Sky Cana and Sky High, expressed its opposition to the government advancing in negotiations to establish an open skies agreement with the United States on the grounds that the companies are developing in very differentiated and disproportionate contexts, which could lead to the extinction of the local airline industry.
“The signing of this agreement would mean the minimization of government intervention in the designation of routes, almost the only resource that protects Dominican airlines allowing them to maintain a share in the markets that by nature belong to them and where the conditions to compete are more favorable than those existing compared to the United States, country where airlines operate under an adjusted tax context and in addition receive direct incentives and economic aid from their government ranging from millionaire exonerations to injections of liquid capital as support in pressing circumstances,” said Omar Chahin Lama, president of ADLA, through a statement.
The executive gave as an example of this that during the crisis unleashed by the pandemic, U.S. airlines received billions of dollars in aid from the state, while in the Dominican Republic, “far from being protected, they were forced to pay taxes even with exercises resulting in losses”.
Considering the schedule loaded in the systems and compiled by Aviacionline through Cirium, during September there will be 689,974 seats offered on 3,916 scheduled flights between the Dominican Republic and the United States. U.S. airlines account for approximately 95% of the supply, connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Houston-IAD, Austin, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, Charlotte, Chicago, Washington-IAD, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York-JFK and Boston with Santo Domingo, Punta Cana, El Cibao and Puerto Plata. In turn, the United States represents almost 60% of the number of seats offered in the Dominican Republic.
The Dominican Civil Aviation Board had informed in mid-August, within the framework of a management balance of the current authorities two years after their inauguration, that they were advancing in “the negotiations for the subscription of the Open Skies Agreement with the United States, which seeks to increase the air operations of national and foreign airlines without limits of frequency and capacity”.
“This year we took on the challenge of expanding the Open Skies policy”, said Marte Piantini, president of the JAC, highlighting that in 24 months 62 new international routes were approved while air services were negotiated with countries such as Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Cuba, Kuwait, Brazil and the Czech Republic, among others.
Between January and July 2022, Dominican airports mobilized 9,216,487 international passengers, 72% higher than the same period in 2021 and at the same level as in 2019.
In this context, air transport in the Dominican Republic is days away from starting to experience its own revolution when Arajet inaugurates its scheduled flights on September 15. With five Boeing 737 MAXs in its fleet and up to 35 aircraft on order, as well as the backing of global industry heavyweights, the ultra low-cost carrier plans to turn Santo Domingo’s Las Americas International Airport into a new continental hub to counterbalance Copa Airlines’ hub in Panama and Viva’s incipient hub in Medellin.
