Last month, the Civil Aviation Board approved the first flights of Air Atlantic to the country. The Dominican airline has applied for the right to fly passengers and cargo to New York, New Jersey, Miami, Panama, Caracas, Lisbon, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Frankfurt, London, Havana, San Juan and Netherlands Antilles from Santo Domingo. The company’s headquarters are at Av. 27 de Febrero on the corner of Tiradentes, in the Edificio Plaza Merengue. The company’s principal executive and shareholder is Carlos J. Chevalier. He is currently in charge of Air Portugal’s operations in the Dominican Republic, in addition to being a tour operator.
Air Atlantic’s operational side is headed by Captain Alfredo Hernández Díaz. Maintenance is under Angel Cristopher and international affairs will be handled by Salvador Flores, with more than 39 years experience in Dominican civil aviation.
Air Atlantic intends to operate scheduled services to cities in Panama, Caracas, Netherlands Antilles, New York, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Lisbon, Frankfurt and Madrid. Likewise, it has plans to operate charter flights to points with which there are bilateral treaties. The airline is now coordinating packages with tour operators.
The company also plans to establish a service of domestic flights between tourist centers and will feed passengers into Santo Domingo for international flights. The domestic flights will use 34-seat aircraft.
Air Atlantic is at present negotiating for a Lockheed L-1011-500 with Fortis Aviation Limited and Transportes Aereos Portugueses (Tap). The aircraft, which will be wet leased, will be available starting 1 October 1996, under the technical supervision of TAP to exploit the routes to Europe. The company is also seeking a dry lease of two B-727-200 aircraft for the Caribbean and New York routes. These aircraft will be manned by Dominican personnel. Maintenance will be carried out by U.S. services certified by the FAA and approved by the Dominican Civil Aviation Board.
With the establishment of the new airline, its executives seek to contribute to the development of the tourist potential and take advantage of the privileged geographic position of the country, as well as its tourist structure and infrastructure – beaches and other attractions, hotels, and airports.
The Dominican Republic has experienced an impressive growth in air traffic in the last few years. Statistics show that the arrival of passengers on scheduled flights at all airports was 1,460,664 in 1995, with some 1,482,601 departures on 31,135 flights. Overall, air traffic increased by 13.5% when compared to 1994.
As for charters, in 1995 some 622,971 passengers arrived and another 619,154 passengers departed on 9,417 such flights departing from the airports of Las Americas, Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, according to data from the Civil Aviation Board.
Indicators show that for 1995, the number of charter flights were up by 16.4% over 1994, while the number of passengers was up by 13%. Air traffic for 1995 totaled more than 4,186,432 passengers.
World air traffic of all the airlines indicates a sustained growth and there are estimates that the available seats for 1997 will be 6,300,000, of which Air Atlantic is striving for a 12% share.
Furthermore, Dominican passengers traveling to and from the country in 1995 numbered 1,303,376 in 1995, which is a 19.6% increase when compared to 1994. Air Atlantic hopes to be patronized by Dominicans living abroad by offering high quality and very competitively priced services.
The new airline foresees, given the prospects for the development of tourism until the year 2000, that there will be a sustained growth in the demand for international tourism of 4.5% a year, which will favorably reflect on the Caribbean and the Dominican Republic which will remain one of the principal destinations into the next millennium. The airline forecasts that 14% of the world traffic to the region will be attracted to the Dominican Republic.