The adviser to the National Association of Pilots of the Dominican Republic, Francisco Díaz, considered it a contradiction that after the announcement by President Luis Abinader about the creation of a flagship airline, the Civil Aviation Board (JAC) granted the land rights of the country to airlines foreigners.
“I consider it a contradiction that the president made that announcement, that there will be a flagship airline while the Dominican Civil Aviation Board signed agreements where it renounced the Fifth Freedom of the Air, which is a land right that opens the competition of the Dominican airspace. to other foreign lines,” Díaz said when interviewed this Thursday on the radio program El Rumbo de la Mañana by Rumba 98.5 FM.
The also airline captain in the United States explained that, by giving up this right, the country gives up the opportunity to operate short and regional flights to foreign airlines, thus losing significant profits for the local economy.
In that sense, he assured that the country has not been able to take advantage, in terms of aviation, of the millions of tourists who visit the country every year attracted by its beaches.
“The problem is that we have not developed a value chain in this tourism connected to aviation. Our beaches attract tourists… but we have not been able to take advantage of that,” he added.
The aviation pilot lamented that the authorities, for years, hand over the aforementioned logistics to foreign companies instead of carrying out an economic impact analysis and calling all interested parties in the industry to develop the air sector at the national level.
“Instead of developing our aviation and doing it jointly, what we have done is give up that idea. We are the country with the largest number of tourists, with the best recovery from covid, but we don’t even have a large national airline that moves those tourists,” he said.
JAC and Qatar Airways
In this regard, he mentioned the recent meeting between the JAC and Qatar Airways where the former expressed its intention to grant the latter the Seventh Freedom, which would make it “basically” a local airline.
“There is talk of granting Qatar the Seventh Freedom, which is the right to operate freely from the Dominican Republic to third countries without connecting to Qatar, which would basically mean that Qatar becomes a local airline,” he explained.
According to the aviation expert, these freedoms are land rights that the States have so that their airlines can fly to other countries but that, in the local case, said right has been transferred to the foreign airline to operate in Dominican territory.
“We have offered Qatar even more, we have offered the Seventh Freedom, settle in the country and travel from here to any destination without having to go to Qatar.”
In its recent statement, the JAC announced that, “from the Civil Aviation Board we are fully prepared, as part of the Air Policy of the Dominican Republic, to grant Seventh Freedom Cargo traffic rights, which would imply expanding the agreement that the Dominican Republic has with Qatar since 2017, and that allows air traffic rights up to the Fifth Freedom of the Air, which grants authorization to commercially transport passengers, mail or cargo destined for the territory of any other contracting State and the right to disembark passengers, mail or cargo from any other Contracting State”.
In the same order, the aviation professional highlighted that the Dominican authorities sell the increase in flights to certain places as a great achievement, when in fact said growth favors foreign airlines.
“The authorities sell us as a great success that they have increased the number of flights to this site, but they have increased it not by creating a Dominican airline but by opening it to foreign ones,” he said, condemning that, “the authorities have not focused in the value chain that creates tourism.
Finally, he assured that he does not seek to attack the government with his statements, but to seek joint work for the advancement of Dominican aviation.
