Dominicana de Aviación

Dominicana de Aviación
IATA ICAO Callsign
DO DOA DOMINICANA
Founded 1944
Ceased operations 1999 (inactive since 1995)
Hubs Las Américas International Airport
Destinations

National: Puerto Plata,

Santo Domingo, and Santiago(The old airport).

International:Boston,Miami,New York,Orlando,Caracas, Curazao,Aruba,Madrid,Toronto,Paris,Frankfurt,London GATWICK,

Panama City, and Quito.
Parent company Dominicana de Aviación
Headquarters Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Website http://www.dominicana.com (defunct)

Compañía Dominicana de Aviación, usually shortened to Dominicana, was an airline from the Dominican Republic, serving as flag carrier of the country.

History

Douglas DC-6B freighter of Dominicana at Miami International Airport in 1975.

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.[1]

Destinations

In 1984, Dominicana offered scheduled flights to the following destinations:[2]

 Aruba
 Dominican Republic
 Haiti
 Netherlands Antilles
 Puerto Rico
 United States of America
 Venezuela

Fleet

Over the years, Dominicana operated the following aircraft types:[3][4]

Dominicana fleet development
Aircraft Total Registrations
A300-200 3 OY-CNA, OY-CNL, N216PA
ATL-98A 2 HI-168, HI-172
BAC One-Eleven 1 G-AVGP
Boeing 707-300 3 HI-442, N706PA, N716PA
Boeing 720 1 N421MA
Boeing 727-100 5 HI-312CT, N15512, N7421U, HI-212CT, HK-727
Boeing 727-200 10 N8858E, HI242CT, HI-452, HI-606CA, HI-612CA, HI-616CA, HI-617CA, HI-629CA, HI-630CA, HI-637CA
Boeing 737-400 1 n/a
Boeing 747-100 1 HI-472
Boeing 757 1 n/a
Douglas DC-3 2 HI-6, HI-7
Douglas DC-4 5 HI-16, HI-18, HI-36, HI-39, HI-46
Douglas DC-6 5 HI-59, HI-83, HI-92, HI-251, HI-292CT
McDonnell Douglas DC-8 1 N72488
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 2 HI-177, N8500
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 3 N902JW, XA-SYE, N143US

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

References

  1. ↑ List of airlines of the Dominican Republic at airlineupdate.com
  2. ↑ Dominicana 1984 timetable
  3. ↑ Dominicana de Aviacion Historic Fleet at the Aero Transport Database
  4. ↑ Dominicana fleet listing (newer aircraft only) at airfleets.net
  5. ↑ Dominicana 1948 crash at the Aviation Safety Network
  6. ↑ 1958 Dominicana crash at the Aviation Safety Network
  7. ↑ Dominicana Flight 402 at the Aviation Safety Network
  8. ↑ Flight 401 Official NTSB Accident Report
  9. ↑ Dominicana 1970 crash at the Aviation Safety Network
  10. ↑ Dominicana 1993 incident at the Aviation Safety Network
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