Dominicana de Aviación Totally Explained

Everything about Dominicana De Aviacion totally explained

Dominicana de Aviacion was (and still is) the national and international flag carrier of the Dominican Republic. It was the biggest airline in Dominican Republic and the only one created by the government. This airline ceased operations in 1995.

Code Data

IATA: DO
ICAO: DOA
Callsing: Dominicana

History

Dominicana started in 1944, as the national airline of the Dominican Republic. The necessity for a national airline arose initially from the large number of Dominican citizens who emigrated to places like New York, Miami, San Juan and Madrid. Dominicana then used such airplanes as the DC-3 and DC-6 for their routes. In January 11 of 1948, one of their DC-3's crashed in Santo Domingo, killing 28 people. The 1950s saw domestic expansion, and the airline began flying heavily between Santo Domingo and other Dominican cities, such as Puerto Plata, La Romana and Santiago de los Caballeros. The 1950s also saw the addition of Curtiss C-46 and ATL-98 Carvair planes to their fleet.
   When the 1960s arrived, so did jets for Dominicana. The airline used a leased DC-8 for their longer flights, such as to JFK International Airport in New York. They also bought Boeing 727s and DC-9s during that era. During the 1970s the airline grew slowly and steadily flew from Santo Domingo to JFK, Miami, and San Juan and some other charter destinations with its young fleet of DC-9s and B727s. The 1970s, however, started with a tragedy for Dominicana, when a DC-9 flying to Puerto Rico crashed into a beach near Santo Domingo, after the pilots of the plane had been granted emergency landing clearance by Las Américas International Airport's control tower. One hundred two people lost their lives, including world boxing champion Carlos Cruz, his wife and 18-month child, and some members of the Puerto Rican women's national volleyball team (see: Dominicana DC-9 air disaster).
   During the early 1980s, Dominicana added flights to Canada using 727s. They also expanded around the Caribbean and to points in South America such as Caracas, Barranquilla and Quito as well as Panama. The 1980s saw the addition of Boeing 747 jets for a brief time, used for flights to Barajas International Airport in Madrid and Frankfurt. By the late 1980s, the airline's economic situation worsened due to poor management and heavy maintenance costs of the fleet it had acquired. Subsequently, airplanes were sold and routes began to be reduced, leaving it only with core routes of JFK, SJU, and MIA, with on and off service to CCS. The company leased its routes to Europe mostly to Charter carriers, these included Frankfurt and Milan.
   By 1990, their situation was critical and were not able to service the B727s they'd left in their fleet. It became cheaper to lease them and thus the airline started the 90s with various dry leased 727s. Things seemed to turn for the better in 1993 when the company was able to lease an A300B2 from Comair for its flights to NY. The Comair plane only flew 4 months, however, and the airline had to once again rely on leased B727s to fly to NY (this aircraft had always brought problems due to the low payload on the NY-DR run thus leading to lost and late baggage, mad customers, and constant "cargo" overnight flights just to transport the late bags). During 1994, the airline wasn't able to dry lease aircraft anymore given its deteriorating credit position (and the stigma/debt from a lethal fire in one of their dry-leased 727s in 1992: a short circuit upon landing put HI-617 on fire at gate stand A6 at SDQ; no injuries) and had to rely on wet-leases. The airline wet-leased a B737-300 from Taesa (to fly SDQ-SJU-SDQ-MIA-SDQ--the MIA run included a stop in POP, three times a week) and B757-200 "Don Catarino" to fly SDQ-JFK-SDQ-SJU-SDQ--the JFK run included a stop in POP, 4 times a week). The Taesa aircraft lasted about 5 months before the company had to recur to other aircraft providers towards for the last 2 quarters of 1994, these included Express One, Atlantic Aviation, and Carnival.
   Christmas of 1994 was tragic for Dominicana. On the NY route, they'd been promised an A300 by the Dominican government, but the funds never came. The airline had booked 290 pax each day for all of December, but only counted on one wet-leased B727 to cover all 3 core routes. Chaos ensued at Las Americas International in SDQ and JFK (Miami and San Juan passengers were told "tough luck" pretty much. The airline had to do emergency leases of a Rich International L1011 about 5 times that month to transport the passengers that were not able to switch to another airline. Luggages were lost, whatever hope to revive the carrier disappeared. In early 1995, the Dominican government decided to close Dominicana Airlines for a few months but months turned to years and today, after much back and forth, most of its assets have been liquidated or ceded to other entities of the Dominican government. The company still has debt outstanding with US debtors as well as former employees. Dominicana De Aviacions livery consisted of a metallic silver fuselage (although some of their planes had an all white fuselage), with red and blue cheatlines, representing the color of the Dominican flag, that went back to the tail. The tail logo was two large blue and two large red blocks, similar to the blocks seen on the Dominican flag. The name Dominicana was written in black letters on top of the passenger windows.

Nowadays

There are no known attempts to revive Dominicana, but the Dominican Republic's government has left the prospect of reviving it in the future as a possibility.
The airline has a huge fan-base, despite its many troubles as a poorly run state airline. The real value is in the brand name and the authorities it can reactivate to fly from various airports in DR to the North America, South America, and Europe.

Destinations

These were actually flown routes, but the airline had authority to fly to many other locations.

Everything about Dominicana De Aviacion totally explained

Code Data

History

Nowadays

Destinations

Domestic

International

United Kingdom

Fleet