This is how the Dominican Republic is dealing with the closure of Spirit and the cuts at JetBlue.

The rising cost of jet fuel, driven by the armed conflict between the United States and Iran, continues to wreak havoc on the global aviation sector, an issue initially thought not to affect tourism in the Dominican Republic directly.

However, the remnants of the crisis are already being felt in Caribbean tourism. Spirit Airlines was the first to stop flying, and recently, JetBlue announced the elimination of its flights between Newark Airport in New Jersey and Santo Domingo and Punta Cana.

Given this situation, it is uncertain whether more airlines will cease flights to the country. For this reason, the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, indicated that the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur) is monitoring seat losses and working to compensate for them by filling capacity, either from the same market or from others.

«We have a map where we monitor seat losses to compensate. For example… we just arrived from Canada, and in that market we increased seats with Air Transant , WestJet , Sunwing Airlines and Air Canada . So what we do is fill in that board so as not to lose the number of seats,» he explained.

He indicated that despite reports of route cancellations, the country continues to show positive numbers.

«We know it’s a delicate moment and we have to be monitoring what’s happening day by day,» Collado said.

He stated that, in addition, to mitigate the effect, they are working hand in hand with Arajet, encouraging them to create new routes to compensate.