The so called "ABC Islands" consist of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, all former colonies of the Netherlands and today part of the Netherlands Antilles. Although sea distances are not long, practically the only mean of transport among them are local flights, operating nonstop between sunrise and sunset, also with this DHC-6 Twin Otter.
There is a small airport La Isabela International to the north of Dominican Republic capital Santo Domingo, which except for General Aviation also handles regional flights with small aircraft. This EMB-120 registration ZS-KLM has nothing to do with the Netherland´s KLM and even the company´s name does not reflect the conditions in which I took this picture...
After a long time Boeing 747 visited Bratislava again last night, this time Kalitta Air with cargo for the US Army. Unfortunately, the arrival was already in the dusk and today´s departure without any sun and even if there would be any, it would be directly from the top...
Canadian airline Jetlines does not fly very rich network and so during my recent visit to Toronto its aircraft were mostly parked on the ground. Luckily in Santo Domingo one of its A320s taxied right in front of me.
It is already very rare to see the "flying shoe box" in Europe these days. However, the US airline Air Cargo Carriers is proud of its fleet and uses them besides Continental US also from its base in San Juan around the Caribbean.
InterCaribbean Airways from Turks and Caicos Islands is almost unknown in our territory, however it operates twice daily to Santo Domingo not only from its home base but also from the British Virgin Islands with a mix of ATR-42, ATR-72, ERJ-145 and EMB-120 aircraft types.
SKYhigh Dominicana has its seat in Santo Domingo and its route network along Caribbean is based on the first generation of Embraer´s E-Jets, ERJ-190 and ERJ-175.
Probably the most precious catch among Venezuelan carriers, somehow main aim of this Latin American trip, is this MD-83 operated by Venezolana. As it is not visible on FR24 and operates really unregularly, it flew over my head around noon when I already gave up my waiting at the seaside near the airport. Luckily later, during an apron visit, it was still parked there in its full beauty and they even removed the stairs for us :-)
Low-cost carrier Arajet has its seat in Santo Domingo and operates not only in the region, but also to Canada. I used it for my transport back to Bogota and thanks to a stop in Santiago (de los Caballeros) I discovered that the city of such name exists also in the Dominican Republic, where most people recognize only seaside locations such as Punta Cana, Puerto Plata or La Romana.
Many people left Venezuela for work abroad due to poverty. One of such countries is also the Dominican Republic, visited thanks to a large Venezuelan workers community by many local airlines, among them Laser Airlines.
For reasons unknown to me this Boeing 737-900 of Wind Rose Aviation visited Bratislava for a few hours today, otherwise it operates on flights of Moldovan airline FlyOne.
Flights between Venezuela and Dominican Republic are often irregular and some of them are not visible in the history on FR24. During my visit I was pleased by two Boeing 737-300s of Rutaca Airlines within a short time.
There are also numerous cargo flights, especially from the USA, to the Las Americas International Airport in the Dominican Republic capital Santo Domingo. One of them during my visit was also this converted B767-300 of Northern Air Cargo.
The first two Boeing 787-9s for Austrian Airlines come from the former Bamboo Airways fleet. The arrival of the first of them, OE-LPM, wanted Austrian Airlines keep so secret that after several delays it arrived in the dark. But on 14 April 2024 they showed it unintentionally to the whole spotter community during pilot training on a Sunday morning... :-)
Once a very diverse aviation scene in South America is now strongly dominated by two megacarriers - Avianca and LATAM. Luckily at least Avianca pays tribute by its retro colours to smaller airlines they swallowed in the past, in this case TACA from El Salvador.
Aerosucre is a cargo airline based in Bogota that still pleases spotters by the operation of a diverse aircraft fleet. This Boeing 737-300F belongs with year of manufacture 1985 to the "younger" ones.
Boeing 747-8F with the 50th Cargolux Anniversary logo operates already for some time, but I managed to catch it only recently at Vienna during evening´s arrival from Hong Kong via Ashgabat.
This 43-years old Boeing 737-200 started its career at Lufthansa and today still flies, after modification into cargo version, from Bogota with Aerosucre.
Avianca, the second oldest airline in the world, celebrated 100 years of existence in 2019 and for this reason applied retro colours from the 1960s to this A320.
There are 3 Boeing 737-400Fs in the fleet of AerCaribe and they operate from Bogota to other countries of Latin America. In the background of the taxiing aircraft is part of the airbase of the Colombian Air Force.
