Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic-based start-up Ara­jet Air­lines, has re­ceived per­mis­sion from the coun­try’s civ­il avi­a­tion board, Jun­ta de Aviación Civ­il (JAC), to be­gin both sched­uled and un­sched­uled flights to Trinidad from its base at San­to Domin­go’s Las Améri­c­as In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (SDQ).

Ara­jet al­so re­ceived per­mis­sion to fly routes to Brazil, Hon­duras, Be­lize, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana.

The an­nounce­ment was made via JAC’s Twit­ter page on Thurs­day. JAC says op­er­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to be­gin in March 2023 us­ing the com­pa­ny’s ex­ist­ing fleet of Boe­ing 737 Max 8s.

Ara­jet Air­lines is an ul­tra-low-cost air­line based in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. It be­gan op­er­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber 2022 and cur­rent­ly flies to 18 des­ti­na­tions in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

Ul­tra-low-cost car­ri­ers typ­i­cal­ly un­bun­dle fares – mean­ing that your tick­et on­ly cov­ers the price of a seat. The air­line then up­sells pas­sen­gers on every­thing ex­tra, in­clud­ing bag­gage and meal.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with avi­a­tion site Sim­ple­Fly­ing.com, Ara­jet’s CEO Víc­tor Pacheco dis­missed the ul­tra-low-cost ti­tle, pre­fer­ring to call Ara­jet an ‘ul­tra-low-price air­line’. Pacheco says cus­tomers can ex­pect fares around 30% to 60% cheap­er than those cur­rent­ly avail­able on the mar­ket. Tick­ets for these new routes can be booked in the up­com­ing weeks.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Tourism Ran­dall Mitchell said a con­tin­gent from the Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed and Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go at­tend­ed the World Routes con­fer­ence in Las Ve­gas in Oc­to­ber and met with sev­er­al air­lines, in­clud­ing Ara­jet Air­lines, who ex­pressed an in­ter­est in fly­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"Dur­ing the meet­ing with Ara­jet Air­line ex­ec­u­tives, they sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to ser­vice the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to Port-of-Spain route. Af­ter this con­fer­ence, dis­cus­sions con­tin­ued with a view to se­cur­ing a sched­uled ser­vice to T&T. The start of this ser­vice, there­fore, is in keep­ing with our sus­tained ef­forts at air­lift de­vel­op­ment and im­prove con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween our key source mar­kets and Trinidad and To­ba­go," Mitchell said.

How­ev­er, there is no in­for­ma­tion at this point on when Ara­jet will start op­er­a­tions in T&T, since they have not yet signed off on an agree­ment with T&T's Civ­il Avi­a­tion.