Dominicana de Aviación

History

Dominicana was established in 1944 in an effort to create a national airline aiming at the large number of Dominican citizens who emigrated to the United States of America, Puerto Rico and Spain. The initial fleet consisted of Douglas DC-3 and DC-6 aircraft. During the 1950s, Dominicana launched a domestic route network to places like Puerto Plata, La Romana and Santiago de los Caballeros, acquiring Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando and Aviation Traders Carvair airplanes. In the 1960s, Dominicana renewed its fleet with the more modern Douglas DC-8, DC-9 and Boeing 727. The route network was further expanded with more destinations in the Americas and the Caribbean during the 1970s. At its height in the 1980s, Dominicana operated Boeing 747 aircraft to European destinations like Madrid, Milan, and Frankfurt.

At the end of the decade, the airline's economic situation worsened due to a poorly led management and the heavy maintenance costs of its ageing fleet. Government employees also sought to fly non-revenue, given the typical patronage in the Dominican Republic. This often displaced paying passengers. Subsequently, the fleet and network were scaled back, leaving only the original routes like New York, Miami, Caracas, and San Juan. In an effort to save on maintenance costs, Dominicana began to operate leased aircraft (mostly Boeing 727, but also in Q1 and Q2 of 1993 an Airbus A300 from Conair). Nonetheless, the financial situation further worsened into the 1990s, which coincided with a negative customer reputation (like lost or delayed luggage as well as unreliable schedules). In 1994, now also faced with Cat1 restrictions in the US, Dominicana wet-leased Boeing 737-300 and a Boeing 757-200 from Mexican low-cost airline TAESA. Further aircraft were wet-leased from Express One International, Atlantic Aviation and Carnival Air Lines. During Christmas of 1994, many Dominicana VFR passengers were stranded at JFK, MIA, and SJU when the airline was not able to provide the necessary funding to the lessors for operating the heavily-booked Christmas flights (and, overbooked for the B727 the lessors were providing, in fact, since an A300 had been expected to be wet-leased). As a consequence to the outrage, in early 1995 the government of the Dominican Republic decided to shut down the airline. While the shutdown was originally only planned as a temporarily measure to get re-organized, the company never became operational again. The vice president at the time was quotted saying that "Dominicans can fly APA Internacional" which was another "local" airline that benefitted handsomely from Dominicana's demise. While various attempts have been made to privatize the airline, no real efforts came to fruition. American Airlines and later JetBlue dominated the market and the business case for a new Dominican proper flag carrier is relatively weak for the investment that would be required and the debts that would have to be honored in order to use the Dominicana name.

Destinations

In 1984, Dominicana offered scheduled flights to the following destinations:

Fleet

Over the years, Dominicana operated the following aircraft types:

Livery

The most common Dominicana livery consisted of a metallic silver fuselage, with red and blue cheatlines tail painting, representing the colors in the Dominican flag. The Dominicana titles was written in black letters above the passenger windows.

Accidents and incidents