Highest ever North America-Dominican Republic Q3 seats; 55 non-stop routes; JetBlue top carrier

The Dominican Republic is a hugely important Caribbean market from North America. According to Cirium schedules information data, there are 1.77 million non-stop one-way seats this July-September (Q3). It is the most-served Caribbean destination from North America after the US territory of Puerto Rico. This quarter, the Dominican Republic, which revolves around diaspora and tourists, accounts for one in every four Caribbean seats from North America.

Some 89% of the 1.77 million seats are from the US, 9.0% from Canada and 2.0% from Mexico. It is a record, with capacity up by a very strong 30.1% versus Q3 2019 and by more than a fifth (20.7%) year-on-year. Interestingly, all three nations are at peak capacity.

29 North American airports served in Q3; JFK is first

Thanks to 900,000+ Dominican Republicans and those of that heritage in the NYC area, JFK has a quarter of all North America-Dominican Republic seats. It has more than double the capacity of Miami, the second of the 29 airports (including those in US territories) with flights.

Some six Dominican Republic airports have flights, broken down as follows. JFK is linked to all except Samana and La Romana, served by JetBlue, Delta and American. Cirium tells that Samana had JFK flights between 2012-2016 and La Romana from 2011 to 2019, both by JetBlue. Curiously, Spain’s Air Europa had scheduled Madrid-JFK-Santo Domingo-Madrid and Madrid-Santo Domingo-JFK-Madrid triangular routes in Q3, but they have been removed.

• Punta Cana: 27 North American destinations in Q3 2023
• Santo Domingo: 14
• Puerto Plata: seven
• Santiago: six
• Samana: two (Canada; had US flights until April 2023)
• La Romana: two

JetBlue is the leading operator; Arajet adds Canada

Some 20 airlines serve the market non-stop. They include LATAM on Santiago-Punta Cana-Miami and vice-versa, and Eastern Airlines monthly (!) between Miami and Santo Domingo with the Boeing 767, presumably mainly for freight. They also include Arajet to Mexico and – from October, so beyond the scope of this article – its first route to Canada (Santo Domingo-Toronto on 24 October; 4-weekly). It does not yet serve the US.

JetBlue is firmly the largest airline. It has 2.3x as many available seats as American and 35% of all North America-Dominican Republic capacity. It rises to 40% from just the US. JetBlue’s network comprises 16 routes from six US airports (Boston, Fort Lauderdale, JFK, Newark, Orlando, San Juan) to four in Dominican Republic (Punta Cana, Puerto Plata, Santiago, Santo Domingo).

55 airport-pairs; top three are from JFK

JFK-Santiago has more seat capacity in Q3 than any other airport pair. Some 1,475 kilometres, it is served by JetBlue (124,300 Q3 seats; 56-weekly flights in August) and Delta (49,700; 21-weekly). Across JetBlue’s entire network, it is its leading international route in these three months. Moreover, when all airlines are considered, JFK-Santiago has more Q3 capacity than any US-Caribbean route after Orlando-San Juan.