Eastern Airlines is launching new flights to Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, from December 17. These new flights are the latest in the recent expansion the US carrier has had in Latin America since it was relaunched earlier this year.
From where will it fly?
Eastern is launching flights to the Dominican Republic from three US cities. The first one is Philadelphia. According to the Caribbean Journal, the new carrier will serve two weekly flights on Tuesdays and Fridays, starting on December 15.
Two days later, Eastern will debut its flights from Boston. Eastern will operate this route on Mondays and Saturdays from Boston. Meanwhile, the flights from Santo Domingo to Boston will happen on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Finally, on December 21, Eastern will launch its Santo Domingo-Miami flights on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Miami-Santo Domingo service will happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
On the Miami route, Eastern will compete with American Airlines, which serves a daily frequency, and Frontier Airlines operates five weekly flights.
Between Boston and Santo Domingo, only JetBlue offers a direct flight daily. Finally, between Philadelphia and Santo Domingo, American Airlines is the competition for Eastern. American offers one weekly flight on Saturdays.
Haiti is on the horizon as well
Earlier this year, Eastern Airlines also launched flights from New York City to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. These flights are currently suspended. But, they’re coming back.
Michael Purchon, director of Airports at Eastern Airlines, said on its LinkedIn account,
“With a lot of hard work and some amazing partnership from the airport authorities in Boston, Philadelphia, and Santo Domingo, the new Eastern is launching service to Santo Domingo and growing the existing service to Haiti this month.”
On Eastern’s website, the route from JFK to Port-au-Prince is coming back on December 9. Meanwhile, the airline will fly from Boston to Haiti starting Friday, December 18. Finally, it will also fly from Philadelphia, starting December 14.
Eastern also shows Miami as a possible destination from Port-au-Prince, but there are no flights scheduled in the next couple of months.
South America is the bet
The new Eastern Airlines has a clear plan in sight: becoming the airline that connects the US with South America and the Caribbean.
Eastern currently operates only from four airports, Boston, JFK, Philadelphia, and Miami. It only has one domestic flight at this point. Every other flight goes to eight countries in South America and the Caribbean.
For example, Eastern flies to Guatemala City, Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, Georgetown, Guayaquil, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Asunción, and Montevideo, according to its current route map.
However,, on its booking search tool, Eastern shows many more destinations. It also expects to fly to Buenos Aires in Argentina; Brasilia, Curitiba, and Belo Horizonte in Brazil; Managua in Nicaragua; Lima in Peru, and Los Angeles in the US.
A broader search made by Simple Flying found these:
- Curitiba-Miami: No current date.
- Managua-Miami: No current date.
- Brasilia-Miami: No current date.
- Lima-Miami: No current date.
- Los Angeles-Guayaquil: Starting on January 29 with one weekly flight on Fridays.
- Buenos Aires-Miami: No current date, despite the announcement of these flights starting in mid-December.
- Belo Horizonte-Miami: No current date.
Finally, on the website, there is no further news about the New York-Los Cabos flights that Eastern delayed in August.
Are you excited about Eastern Airlines’ flights? Let us know in the comments.
