TORONTO — Connecting 22 destinations in 16 countries, Arajet is the only airline set to connect Santo Domingo with Toronto and Montreal via direct flights.

It’s also the first low-fare airline in the Caribbean.

And it wants to work with travel agents.

This summer Arajet opened ticket sales for its new Toronto – Santo Domingo route, scheduled to launch Oct. 24, 2023 and run until March 30, 2024, with four flights per week. Montreal flights start Nov. 7. The goal is to have daily flights year-round from YYZ and YUL.

 “WE LIKE TO PARTNER WITH TRAVEL AGENTS”

Travelweek sat down with Victor Pacheco, CEO and founder of Arajet, for an interview at The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto to take a deeper look at the airline. Arajet began operations in September 2022 and is based at Las Americas Airport in Santo Domingo.

This year Arajet has been responsible for adding some one million seats to the market, and currently has a fleet of five brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8s. The company expects delivery of five more by the end of the year.

Arajet CEO and founder Victor Pacheco

Travel agents can directly contact Arajet with their inquiries by emailing agencias@arajet.com. Pacheco says Arajet will construct tailor-made arrangements to compensate agents based on any agent’s level of interest.

“As a part of our strategy, we like to partner with travel agents, tour operators and hotel groups, and we are very flexible in how we do so because we believe that having strong partners in different markets allows us to be able to access already established markets. We are enrolling hundreds of travel agents every month, however we are going to give special attention to Canada now that we’re here. We are wanting to make sure that agents find in Arajet a reliable partner and can know that their clients are going to have a reliable choice,” explained Pacheco.

Passengers can easily access different parts of the D.R. from Santo Domingo, but Arajet does more than just take travellers to the D.R. as it’s a hub in the Caribbean, says Pacheco. He adds that 58% of the tickets the airline has sold to Canadians are for passengers whose ultimate destination is not the D.R. Travellers don’t have to transfer their own bags or go through security again at connections on an Arajet trip, and that’s a convenience, says Pacheco.

“In terms of pricing, because of our strategic geographic position, we have very competitive pricing. Canadians will probably find, for example, from Toronto to Sao Paulo, that Arajet is 50% cheaper or more. We’ve sold over 10,000 tickets to the Canadian market already,” he said. “Not only is it a quality product and brand new aircraft, there’s also the efficiency factor. We really want to win over our passengers with our service, which we want to be world class. This means friendly with a smile. We care deeply about our passengers.”

Pacheco talked to Travelweek about his reasoning behind Arajet’s launch. “The price of travel is so high in the region that the only way to solve that problem was to create an airline, what we call a ‘low-fare airline’,” he said. “We don’t say we’re a low-cost airline. The difference is the service we provide to the customer. We’ve heard a lot of positive feedback in [this first] year, from a variety of passengers, saying that they appreciate the level of service. And we currently have over 150 combinations of connections among our 22 destinations. So we offer more than just point-to-point travel.”

He added: “We came into the market with an average fare of US$175 with taxes and fees included. That made our competitors lower their price to $275. In the D.R. that’s called the Arajet effect, and it proves a void in the market and a need for an airline like Arajet. We’ve grown our markets where we’re currently operating three times the size that they were before Arajet. Lowering the fares stimulated traffic across the board.”

Arajet was named to provide a link with the regional indigenous Taíno people, who named the macaw ‘Ara.’ Fittingly, the macaw is a colourful bird that flew all over the Americas, like Arajet. To learn more about the airline, visit Arajet.com.