Final preparations are underway for Air Dominicana, the Dominican national airline, to take off in May with flights to and from the United States, Mexico and South America.

The first of the two Boeing 737s that will make up the initial fleet of Air Dominicana are currently undergoing a technical revision and inspection process at a specialized center in Europe and will be subject to a series of test flights beginning April 24-30, according to a press release from the Ministry of Tourism.

The first plane will be inspected by technicians from the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute (IDAC). The plane’s arrival onto Dominican soil is projected for April 23. The second plane is expected to arrive by the middle or end of May.

The national airlines will operate, in principle, from the International Airport of Punta Cana, until it expands its operations to other markets around the world.

Ignacio Sanguino Mora, General Director of Air Dominicana, explained that the airline’s staff will initially be made up of 14 Dominican and 2 Spanish pilots who are being trained at the Training Center of the Pan-Am Academy in Miami.

He explained that in Santo Domingo the Aerojet Company is training 30 cabin crew members, 29 of whom are Dominican. Three IDAC inspectors and three maintenance technicians are taking a special Boeing 737 course in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The course is being given by Lufthansa.

Also, as part of these preparations, he said an instructor from the Pan-Am Academy is coming to the DR to teach six ground staffers to be dispatchers and members of the technical office team. There are 30 flight attendants receiving training from the Spanish Airline Futura.

Mr. Sanguino offered this information after a recent visit to Tourism Minister Félix Jiménez who showed him the uniforms to be used by Air Dominicana’s crew. The uniforms are the same color as the national flag.

“We still haven’t decided if the first flight will be on May 1, 2 or 3. It depends on whether we have the necessary permits for the date although we think that if everything remains on track, we’ll be ready for an April 30th take-off. But even so, we don’t have tour operators’ petitions for the 1st and 2nd of May, only for the 3rd of May, ” he pointed out. Sanguino explained that the first flights of Air Dominicana are being negotiated with tour operators from the South American market, especially Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. “We’re also in negotiations with a local tour operator to try and organize inter-island routes between the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Barbados and other neighboring islands.”

“We have found there is a lot of demand in these South American countries, mainly Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and also in Peru. Although we haven’t signed any agreements yet, the markets with the most possibility are in Ecuador (Quito and Guayaquil) as well as Venezuela. Speaking in terms of the North American market, Sanguino said that it appears that Air Dominicana will likely begin operations there by this coming July according to what tour operators in the United States and Canada are indicating about this market.

“We have every intention of getting into the American market, mainly San Juan, Puerto Rico and Miami, once we have the pertinent permissions from the U.S. authorities,” he concluded.