Dominicana Airlines
6th in a Series: A Fictional Low Cost Carrier (LCC) for the Dominican Republic
Dominicana Airlines (Spanish formal name: Aerolíneas Dominicanas SA) is a low cost carrier (LCC) airline for the Dominican Republic. Headquartered on the grounds of Las Américas International Airport (SDQ) in Punta Caucedo near the capital city of Santo Domingo, the airline’d two hubs are located at Santo Domingo-SDQ and Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ).
Established in 2016 as a charter airline, by 2018 Domincana became a scheduled carrier, then adopted the low cost carrier model in 2021. In the years since the Covid 19 pandemic the company has experienced rapid growth.
The airline operates jet air service to destinations across eastern North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, as well as turboprop passenger and cargo air service within the Dominican Republic. The company’s strongest marketing segments include Dominican expats, thru-passengers seeking discounted fares, and budget-minded leisure travelers.
History
Startup
Dominicana Airlines was co-founded in 2016 by Pablo Peralta, a wealthy Dominican-born MLB baseball legend; and Dante de León, a successful Dominican-born airline executive and entrepreneur, who each took a 50% stake in the venture. Mr Peralta, a 5 time World Series champion who played for the New York Yankees from 1989 to 2009, would become the public face of the company while Mr de León would oversee its day to day activities.
Messrs Peralta and de León acquired a Boeing 737-800 in 2017. They originally planned to to feature baseball symbology on the livery, including a baseball and bat with a stylized version of Mr Peralta’s retired jersey number (#22) on the tail of the aircraft. There were concerns regarding the branding being less than interesting, however, so after some discussion the men switched to a more striking logo featuring a dramatic silhouette of two tango dancers on the tail of the jet. The silhouette drawing was taken from a 2005 publicity photo featuring Mr Peralta and his wife Marisol Santana-Peralta, an acclaimed New York-born Dominican-American professional dancer and longtime American TV dance show judge. Mr Peralta’s #22 jersey roundel was retained, but moved to a spot between the left front door and the cockpit window.
The story about the logo garnered significant positive media publicity for the airline, within a few months the carrier acquired additional 737-800s and started to offer scheduled flights from the US and Canada to the Dominican resort cities of Punta Cana-PUJ and Puerto Plata-POP. This soon proved particularly gainful for the carrier. To tap into the large Dominican-American expat market segment, in 2019 two more leased 737s began nonstop service from Santo Domingo-SDQ to New York-JFK and Miami-MIA.
Impact of Covid-19
Plans were laid out to further grow the airline even further in 2020 by adding more flights from North America to La Romana-LRM and Samaná-AZS, as well as to expand nonstop air service to Colombia and Ecuador. But the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020 and scuttled those plans, forcing a reset of the airline’s priorities.
During a near-total halt to international passenger flights from March to July 2020, the company ripped out all passenger seats and turned their 737-800s into improvised freighters that could bring in food and medicine. The airline also brought in several ATR 42 combi and cargo aircraft from Europe to further strengthen the country’s domestic supply chain with the Dominican Republic, reaching out to its other cities from the Santo Domingo-SDQ base. Along with some special government funding, the airline’s pivot to supporting the cargo trade proved to be key in helping Dominicana Airlines to ride out the pandemic.
Post-Covid Expansion
International passenger flights began to resume in July 2020 under more stringent health and safety protocols, but passenger traffic did not begin to truly recover until 2022 when “revenge travel” brought hundreds of thousands of North Americans to the Dominican Republic’s resort cities.
Dominicana Airlines decided to retain its new-found fleet of ATR aircraft and continue using them to service the domestic air market, and soon became an important domestic carrier. The domestic network saw further expansion with the arrival of a few larger ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft, which first connected Santo Domingo-SDQ to Punta Cana-PUJ and Puerto Plata-POP, then were linked to other cities nationwide.
In early 2021 the airline began to receive the first of a dozen newly leased Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which were used to replace the carrier’s Boeing 737-800s on international routes to eastern North America as well as to start an aggressive network expansion to destinations throughout the Americas.
By 2022 Dominicana had built out its hubs at Santo Domingo-SDQ and Punta Cana-PUJ, which were each designed to cater to different marketing segments.
Punta Cana-PUJ was configured to provide nonstop service from North and South America for budget-minded resort travelers and get them processed in and out as efficiently as possible. Meanwhile the Santo Domingo-SDQ base was positioned to cater to Dominican expats as well as retirees, cost-conscious backpackers and other thru-passengers headed onward to other destinations. Much was done to synchronize the SDQ arrivals and departures such that thru-passengers would rarely experience layovers exceeding two hours.
In late 2023 the last of the airline’s Boeing 737-800s were returned to the leasing firm, making the Boeing 737 MAX 8 as the carrier’s flagship aircraft.
Future Plans
Several expansion plans have been set forth by the airline’s leadership. Plans are afoot to expand air service into western North America, especially to cities like Denver-DEN, Los Angeles-LAX and Vancouver-YVR. Preparations are also underway to upgrade Puerto Plata-POP into a focus city with routes connecting to eastern North American cities such as New York-JFK, Boston-BOS, Baltimore-BWI, Chicago-ORD, Montreal-YUL and Toronto-YYZ.
The airline is also reportedly considering adopting either Boeing 787s or Airbus A321XLRs to begin offering nonstop air service into Europe, most likely to London-LHR, Paris-CDG, Amsterdam-AMS and Frankfurt-FRA. There is further talk about leasing Boeing 737 MAX 9s to better service the carrier’s demanding Santo Domingo-SDQ to New York-JFK city pair. The company plans to take decisions on these matter by mid to late 2024.
Destinations
Domestic Network
Dominicana Airlines flies to the following destinations within the Dominican Republic. [ Map Link ]
Barahona-BRX
Costanza-COZ
La Romana-LRM
Puerto Plata-POP
Punta Cana-PUJ - Focus City
Samaná-AZS
Santiago de los Caballeros-STI
Santo Domingo-SDQ - Hub - [ Map Link ]
International Network: Santo Domingo-SDQ
Dominicana Airlines flies to the following international destinations from Santo Domingo-SDQ. [ Map Link ]
Aruba-AUA, Aruba
Atlanta-ATL, Georgia USA
Baltimore/Washington-BWI, Maryland USA
Bogotá-BOG, Colombia
Cali-CLO, Colombia
Cancún-CUN, Mexico
Cartagena-CTG, Colombia
Chicago-ORD, Illinois USA
Comayagua-XPL, Honduras
Guatemala City-GUA, Guatemala
Guayaquil-GYE, Ecuador
Houston-IAH, Texas USA
Kingston-KIN, Jamaica
Lima-LIM, Peru
Managua-MGA, Nicaragua
Medellín-MDE, Colombia
Miami-MIA, Florida USA
Montego Bay-MTB, Jamaica
Montréal-YUL, Quebec, Canada
New York-JFK, New York USA
Orlando-MCO, Florida USA
Quito-UIO, Ecuador
Panama City-PTY, Panama
Rio de Janeiro-GIG, Brazil
San José-SJO, Costa Rica
San Salvador-SAL, El Salvador
São Paulo-GRU, Brazil
St Maarten-SXM, Sint Maarten
Toronto-YYZ, Ontario, Canada
International Network: Punta Cana-PUJ
Dominicana Airlines flies to the following international destinations from Punta Cana-PUJ. [ Map Link ]
Atlanta-ATL, Georgia USA
Baltimore/Washington-BWI, Maryland USA
Bogotá-BOG, Colombia
Cancún-CUN, Mexico
Chicago-ORD, Illinois USA
Dallas/Ft Worth-DFW, Texas USA
Guayaquil-GYE, Ecuador
Houston-IAH, Texas USA
Kingston-KIN, Jamaica
Lima-LIM, Peru
Miami-MIA, Florida USA
Montego Bay-MTB, Jamaica
Montréal-YUL, Quebec, Canada
New York-JFK, New York USA
Orlando-MCO, Florida USA
Quito-UIO, Ecuador
Panama City-PTY, Panama
Rio de Janeiro-GIG, Brazil
São Paulo-GRU, Brazil
Toronto-YYZ, Ontario, Canada
Fleet
Current Fleet
The current Dominicana Airlines fleet includes the following aircraft types.
Former Fleet
Dominicana Airlines previously operated the following aircraft types.
Boeing 737-800 - 2016-2023
=Nota Bene=
Dominicana Airlines isn’t based on any other airline, past or current.
There was once an airline called Dominicana de Aviación (1944-1999) that was the flag carrier for the Dominican Republic, which flew many interesting old-school aircraft like the DC-4, 707, 727, DC-10, etc. Someday I might get around to writing up some kind of fictional version of Dominicana de Aviación.
The route map is somewhat inspired by the real world modern day airline Arajet, but there are many differences. For example, at press time Arajet had no service to the United States, while Dominicana Airlines flies to 13 US cities. Also, Dominicana has a turboprop fleet flying domestic routes, while Arajet has no such thing. Like Arajet, Dominicana Airlines is privately owned and flies Boeing aircraft, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
Pablo Peralta is not based on any specific real life baseball player. His jersey number (22) is not retired as of press time, and in real life was historically worn by several prominent Yankees players: Marius Russo (1939-1943), Allie Reynolds (1947-1954), Roger Clemens (1999-2003), and Robinson Cano (2005-2006, then switched to #24 in 2007).
I decided to use the tango dancer graphic on the tail - I really liked that particular graphic anyway - instead of using a baseball player motif because a baseball motif seemed very cliched to me. Instead I added the #22 jersey roundel near the front door of the planes as an afterthought, since Mr Peralta would obviously be proud of his prior career.
Speaking of the roundel… Note that Mr Peralta’s #22 jersey roundel only appears on the company’s jet aircraft; they are not displayed on the turboprop fleet. There is nothing symbolic about this, but Dominicana Airlines were to add widebody jets to their fleet, the roundel will no doubt be applied to them as well.
Pablo Peralta’s wife Marisol Santana-Peralta is not based on anyone in real life, either. When I decided to feature tango dancers on the tail of the aircraft, I gave her a dancing career of her own to justify the graphic, instead of having her be like a trophy wife and little else. Because of her own fame, I’m sure there are plenty of women around the world who would be more familiar with her than her husband.
The idea of a sports figure starting an airline is not far-fetched or nothing new. Formula One racing champion Niki Lauda had a very successful career in real life as an aviation entrepreneur, having founded both Lauda Air and Niki.
All liveries depicted in this article were conceived and drawn by the Author.
All aircraft templates shown in this article are licensed from Norebbo and augmented by the Author for display. Blank side view templates of these aircraft are available for purchase through ShopNorebbo.
Route Maps were created using Great Circle Map.