Years ago, I flew Dominicana de Aviaci?n to the DR because it was cheap. It was never on time, the planes smelled icky, but it was cheap and they never lost my luggage.
Once I arrived at SDQ to fly back to Miami, and there were about a hundred others waiting with me. After four hours, they announced that the flight was cancelled, and that those of us with tickets should gather at one end of the counter and they would arrange to take up into SD and provide a hotel room. Strangely, only three others and my self came to that end of the counter. Some other passengers were yelling and hooting, and one guy was taken away by security. Finally, they sent a van and we were taken to a hotel which was not too bad, somewhere E of the Ozama River. Another of my fellow passengers said that he heard that the plane had simply dipped its wings and flown on to Caracas, because there were not enough paying customers to justify landing. He heard something about avoiding landing fees. Apparently, he had overheard some of the ticket counter employees talking.
So it turned out that the plane was filled with people flying free, either because they were government or airline employees or their relatives.
