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”…
