Arajet Requests DOT Authorization To Launch Flights To The US
The Dominican carrier Arajet has requested US Department of Transportation (DOT) authorization to begin operating scheduled commercial passenger services to three destinations, San Juan (SJU), Miami (MIA), and New York John F. Kennedy (JFK) or New York Stewart International Airport (SWF). If approved, this would be Arajet’s entrance to the largest market in the Americas; the airline already operates routes to 17 destinations in 11 countries across South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
The last frontier
When Simple Flying met with Arajet’s CEO, Víctor Pacheco, last year in the Dominican Republic, he told us that the United States was their goal market. The gigantic diaspora of Dominican people living particularly on the East Coast made flying to destinations such as New York and Miami particularly appealing for the new carrier, which only just began commercial services in September last year.
This plan has been set into motion, with Arajet looking to launch passenger services to the United States by 2023’s fall employing its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft configured with 185 seats, according to the document filed with the DOT. The airline:
“Seeks an exemption authorizing scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property, and mail from a point or points in the Dominican Republic (…) to the coterminal points San Juan, Puerto Rico, New York, New York, and Miami, Florida.”
Simple Flying reached Arajet for comment on this request to the DOT however, the airline declined to comment.
Addressing the diaspora
Arajet’s plan is to improve connectivity across the region, using its base in Santo Domingo Las Américas International Airport as a hub airport. This plan includes several destinations in the United States, “where there is significant leisure travel demand to the Dominican Republic, as well as a large Dominican diaspora,” the airline said.
In the midterm, Arajet’s visions for services to the United States can be described in two phases. The first phase will serve the largest markets with tourism demand and the Dominican diaspora, including New York, Miami, and San Juan metropolitan areas.
In the second phase, Arajet will launch new services to other cities that do not currently have direct flights to the Dominican Republic. The airline said that it is supporting efforts in the Dominican Republic to negotiate an Open Skies agreement with the United States to allow greater flexibility in service between the two countries.
Against who would Arajet compete on these routes?
The most likely scenario is that Arajet would serve JFK, Miami, and San Juan from Santo Domingo. Arajet is already expanding to other Dominican airports (it recently announced a route between Cibao Airport and Bogota El Dorado), but Santo Domingo remains its hub.
According to data from Cirium, there are currently 141 weekly flights from Santo Domingo to these three US cities, operated by six airlines (one Dominican, RED Air, and the rest from the US, Eastern, American Airlines, JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, and Frontier).
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The Santo Domingo-New York route has the largest number of flights, with 63 each week (nine daily) and 11,914 seats available (189.1 on average per departure). Santo Domingo-Miami has 50 weekly flights, and Santo Domingo-San Juan has 28 weekly flights.
JetBlue is the main competitor in this market, operating 42 weekly flights from JFK and 21 from San Juan. American Airlines offers 35 weekly flights in the Miami-Santo Domingo route, and Delta Air Lines operates 21 weekly flights from JFK.
Are you excited about Arajet’s plan to launch commercial services to the United States? Let us know in the comments below.