Relief and happiness filled the airports with the return of international arrivals at Las Americas (Santo Domingo), Punta Cana and Cibao (Santiago) international airports this 1 July. The airports had been closed to international traffic since 19 March 2020.
The government authorized the reopening of the six international airports: International (Santo Domingo), Cibao International (Santiago) and Punta Cana International (Punta Cana). An estimated 2,000 persons arrived.
Punta Cana International Airport welcomed its first flight on 1 July. JetBlue was the first to fly in from New York. On board were 99 passengers. The flight landed at 11:29am at the open air terminal of the east coast airport.
On the first day, 346 passengers would arrive from New York, San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Miami.
The president of the Punta Cana International Airport, Frank Rainieri, and his wife Haydee Rainieri were there to receive the first passengers. Previously, only repatriation (one-way) flights had been allowed.
As reported, for July, there are flights scheduled from Toronto and Montreal in Canada; Miami, Atlanta, New York, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, Newark, Boston, Charlotte and Houston in the United States; Zurich and Madrid from Europe.
Las Americas International received 15 flights with foreigners and locals on board. The first flight to arrive to Las Americas was a JetBlue flight from Puerto Rico with 34 passengers. JetBlue had 13 flights yesterday, as reported in Diario Libre. Other reports are of flights from Spirit from Florida, and Air Europe from Madrid.
Cibao International announced the arrival of 11 flights by JetBlue from New York, Boston and New Jersey. For Thursday, 12 JetBlue flights are scheduled.
Monika Infante, chief executive for Aerodom airports, forecast around 120,000 arrivals in July.
Listin Diario
N Digital
El Dia
2 July 2020