The Listín Diario reports that a technical mission from the United States Federal Aviation Agency will visit the DR 19-25 June to ascertain what advances made that would enable DR registry airplanes to fly again to the United States. Dominican airlines are banned from flying to the US because of the US Federal Aviation Agency assessing the government of the Dominican Republic’s civil aviation authority as Category 3 – not in compliance with international aviation safety standards for oversight of the DR’s air carrier operations. As a result, flights to the US by the Dominican Republic’s air carriers are not permitted since 1993 unless they arrange to have the flights conducted by a carrier from a country meeting international safety standards. Mission members are Raul Pomales, Hoke Weise and Thomas Roper. Aviation sectors have been critical that the Fernández government aviation authorities chose to hire the services of the OACI to improve local aviation controls when the problem was strictly with the US FAA. Other unexplainable aviation concerns are the construction by the government of a new Santo Domingo airport, while privatizing all other airports. And the granting of a seven-year monopoly on flights to the US to bankrupt Dominicana Airlines. The tender for the privatization of Dominicana was to be held in May, but was suspended at the request of the new government authorities. (8 June 2000)
