Eduardo Selman, director of the Corporación Dominicana de Empresas Estatales, the group of state enterprises that is being privatized, said he expects the state airline, Dominicana, to resume flying before the end of the Fernández administration on 16 August 2000. He commented that four airlines have shown an interest in acquiring the rights to the national airline. To make the privatization of the state airline attractive, the Dominican Aviation Board has granted it seven years of exclusivity of a Dominican airline to fly to the US market. The privilege has met with ample opposition from the National Association of Hotels and Restaurants and the National Airlines Association. Regardless, Selman said that Dominicana’s flying to the US is contingent on the lifting of Category III (imposed by the US Federal Aviation Agency) that impedes Dominican airlines from flying to the US.
