Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic’s resorts such as Puerto Plata are popular holiday spots for North Americans and Europeans.
20–25 during the summer months, from a number of US cities (New York, Boston, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and San Juan).
JetBlue expanded its network in the Dominican Republic to four cities in 2010 with the addition of Punta Cana, along with Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata and Santiago. However, unsurprisingly, the capital city continues to dominate the country’s air service, with just over half of JetBlue’s services destined for Santo Domingo.
“According to the CEO of JetBlue, Dave Barger, who was down here having dinner with us a couple of months ago, they expect to move well over one million passengers into the country next year,” says O’Brian. JetBlue’s Clark confi rms this: “We believe there is still more space to grow in the Dominican – we are adding more frequencies from San Juan, New York and Boston in 2011. We are also considering additional destinations in the country for the future.” This expansion in the Dominican Republic is in line with JetBlue’s plans throughout the larger Caribbean region,
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where it aims to add between one and two new destinations a year and it has already unveiled plans to start serving Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos during 2011.
“In addition to new destinations we are rapidly growing San Juan and will become the largest carrier in Puerto Rico during 2011,” adds Clark.
Spirit – major player
O’Brian notes that Spirit Airlines has been growing just as strongly in the Dominican Republic from its Fort Lauderdale base.
“Spirit has become a major player in the South Florida to Latin American market and is now fl ying to about 25 cities in Latin America. Their main target is US residents who originally hail from Latin America and are travelling to visit friends and relatives. These passengers are taking advantage of the really low fares, many frequencies and good service.”
Traffi c growth
O’Brian points out that JetBlue and Spirit have been particularly successful
in attracting and growing ‘ethnic’ Dominican traffi c.
“There are over one million people of Dominican descent living in the New York area including Newark and New Jersey, as well as places such as Philadelphia and Washington, and South Florida,” he says. O’Brian adds that this VFR traffi c is sustained throughout the year but is particularly strong around major holidays such as Christmas.
This core ethnic market is supported by outbound US tourism traffi c, with passengers travelling for leisure holidays in the Caribbean country. Another important tourism market is Canada, which produces signifi cant leisure traffi c from ‘snowbirds’ who want to escape the long cold winter months. These core North American markets are complemented by a number of important routes within Latin America and the Caribbean itself, explains O’Brian. “We have a healthy programme in Latin America, which includes the Caribbean, South America and Central
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