US Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater capped off his tour of Central American and Caribbean by signing an Open Skies aviation accord with the DR yesterday. The agreement is the US’s 9th in the Caribbean and 39th in the world. The agreement is expected to benefit US aviation and DR tourism. Dominican airlines will not benefit as the country has Category Three status, which bans DR airlines from flying to the US until safety and security programs are fulfilled. Slater said the agreement was signed because the Dominican leadership (President Fernández) decided that the time was now. He said the open skies accord is part of the general efforts of the Fernández administration to position the DR in the regional arena. Dominican tourism will benefit if more US airlines fly in and are able to break the present gridlock of lack of seats and high rates due to the virtual oligopoly of the few airlines that cover the US-DR routes. The Open Skies aviation accord will permit US airlines to operate air services between the two countries without restrictions on how often carriers can fly, kind of aircraft used and prices charged. In the Caribbean region, the US has Open Skies agreements with the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
