SANTO DOMINGO- In two years and 10 months, 42,625,597 passengers have traveled through the Dominican Republic via 343,586 air operations, resulting in estimated direct and indirect revenues for the country of US$39,245 million and the recovery of more than 400,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The figures were provided by the president of the Civil Aviation Board (JAC), José Ernesto Marte Piantini, who highlighted that since the beginning of his administration at that institution, he proposed to increase the country's connectivity to encourage the arrival of tourists and also increase air cargo capacity.
Speaking as a guest at the HOY Economic Forum, Piantini said that from August 2020 to October 2023, the Civil Aviation Board (JAC) signed 31 commercial cooperation agreements between airlines from different countries. In addition, 150 new routes to various destinations worldwide were added.
Also authorized were 40,981 air operations under the non-regular or charter modality, of which 22,212 correspond to exclusive cargo operations and 18,769 to passenger and combined transport operations.
In commercial aviation, charter flights are non-regular flights (that is, flights that do not have a fixed itinerary, routes and schedules), are not sold through the usual sales channels, but are contracted to transport a group of people with a common destination.
The president of the JAC said that another achievement in the last three years is that a total of 14,452 flights have been approved under the Special Permits modality.
He explained that this system allows airlines to explore routes and highlights the Dominican Republic's appeal as a Caribbean destination. He also noted that 533 airlines currently operate to and from the Dominican Republic, of which 7 are domestic, 63 are scheduled, and 463 are charter.
Two new domestic airlines, Red Air and Arajet, have also entered the international market with regular service, operating aircraft with a capacity of over 100 passengers. Regarding these domestic airlines, Piantini highlighted the significance of two of them offering connectivity to the United States (Sky High Dominicana) and Canada (Arajet).
