@movernie
Today, I met the CEO of Arajet, Victor Pacheco, as he and his team flew to Toronto to meet with some of the media people including myself. The main purpose of this meet & greet was to have the Toronto media to get to know more about Victor, Arajet airline and the visions this company want to achieve with its new routes flying passengers from Toronto and Montreal to Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic (DR) on October 24, 2023 and November 7, 2023 respectively.
Quite honestly, I don’t know much about Arajet and didn’t know what to expect at this meet & greet. But as you know me by now, I am always curious and I luv learning about new airlines that are coming into the industry. I always wanted to see healthy competition, coz to me, good competition helps elevate the aviation industry as well as providing the customers with more options and choices. I am not a fan of monopolized air industry.
If you would like to know more about Arajet, its fact sheets, company INFO and its products and services, you can click here to read more.
In this MoVernie BLOG below, the focus will be my encounter with Victor Pacheco and other members of the committee.
The meet & greet was setup at EPOCH Bar, an outdoor patio terrace bar located at the back of The Ritz. This hotel is one of my favourites in Toronto as the staff is always very courteous and welcoming. Of course, this hotel is super buzzing during Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which I was here quite often during TIFF a few weeks ago.
Today’s weather was super warm and humid, which was different from some chillin temperature that we were experiencing for a few weeks prior. I guess Victor and his Arajet people brought in some much needed warm temperature from Dominican Republic. LOL
The moment I walked to the back of the bar, I saw the PR agency representative Jason, followed by Victor and a number of executives, including Hans Dannenberg, who is passionate about commercial aviation, tourism and international relations. Most importantly, Hans is the ambassador of the Dominican Embassy in Canada.
The setting was very chill as we just wanted to casually get to know more about each other, what me and my MoVernie team does and what we bring to the table. And vice versa, I wanted to meet Victor and his team to learn more about Arajet. It’s important for me to do my own due diligence and research about an airline so I can share the right information and content with my followers who religiously respect and appreciate my feedback, opinions and my travel experiences. I don’t promote every airline as it’s important to me that the airlines that I work with are legit and professional and bring integrity and standard with their products and services.
After I introduced myself to the committee, I honestly told Victor and his team that I have not heard of Arajet prior to our meet & greet, not until when the PR agency reached out to me and bring awareness about this airline. So, I told him many Canadians will most likely never heard of them either. So, what makes Arajet special and how is Arajet differ from the rest of the existing airlines?
I told Victor that I have been working with a number of Canadian airlines, despite many newcomers coming into the aviation industry in recent years, the ONLY legitimate airline that I feel strongly that provides good flight options is Porter Airlines.
Victor had highlighted a number of key points to me and I wanted to share with you.
– Arajet’s headquarter is in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (DR) which provides flights in the Central and South American regions as well as in the Caribbean regions
– Arajet is different from other airlines as Arajet has a great working culture, that cares about its staff from all levels of the corporation, with passionate people, with staff being treated like a family and care and respect for each other
– Arajet wants have Santo Domingo (capital of Dominican Republic” as a major hub that attracts Canadians to fly with Arajet, through the hub in Santo Domingo and then fly to other destinations such as Aruba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, and other parts of the nearby regions.
– Arajet is low-price airline that offers high quality of flights and services.
– Arajet provides various flight options and luggage style. Some wants to only bring a backpack, they are being charged with a price. If someone wants to bring a carry-on with a perosnal item, there is another package. Some wants to check-in their bags, there are other options. People are paying based on their traveling style.
– Victor emphasized to me that its airline is punctual and reliable. Victor asked me what I value the most when flying with an airline, I told him flights not being delayed, flights not being cancelled are huge factors for me. If a flight does cancel, I would expect the airline to provide alternative options and assistance to help its passengers from being stranded. I want assistance where ground crew would provide assistance and not via some app or automated robots as the core support. I want to have backup flights to get us to where we want to go. Of course, if an airline provides free wifi or snacks and beverages, those are icing on the cake.
– Hans Dannenberg, ambassador for Dominican Republic Embassy in Canada pinpointed to me the importance of having Arajet to provide flights in Canada as it’s a great gateway for people from DR and other parts of the Central and South American regions to come visit Canada, increasing tourists attractions and revenue to Canada. Relatives, family and friends can now visit their Canadian families more often with Arajet. Vice-versa when Canadians such as myself can visit different parts of Central and South American regions more often with flight options at a very affordable and reasonable cost with Arajet
– Moreover Hans also emphasized that many other airlines offer Canadians to visit beach areas such as Punta Cana and Puerto Plata. Although these beach areas are very attractive and popular, the Capital of DR, Santo Domingo and its nearby surroundings have so much to offer and to be discovered. With Arajet flights flying to Santo Domingo, Canadians and other tourists have a chance to visit this rich historic Capital of DR. And Hans has a point, coz I never been to Dominican Republic and I often hear about Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, but I am super intrigued to places where it is being visited less or not being talked about, I would definitely want to visit Santo Domingo someday so I can show my followers what this capital city has to offer and generate content that can share with them. That’s my MoVernie GOAL!
Anyhow, it was definitely a great meet & greet with Victor, Hans and the rest of the team during my in-person meeting with them. I learned so much about Arajet and the country of Dominican Republic. And I found in-person meeting is still the most effective way to communicate as I can feel, sense and get a vibe of the people we meet. I can sense the professionalism, the passionate, the knowledge and expertise of these executives about their businesses. They are committed and strive for greatness!
I did provided them with a very honest response in that, it’s nice to hear all of their objectives, visions and game plans, but it’s important for me to see all of these visions transpired in person. I need to experience it myself in order to believe it as many companies will tell you how awesome they are. But it’s very important for me to experience the flights and the destinations myself so that I can accurately analyzed and provided a fair assessment of the products and services with my followers. I am always very responsible and I will only recommend good products and services with my followers and in order to do that, I have to experience it myself before I decide if I should endorse and approve a product and service.
Victor and the team agreed and respected my honest feedback. They would like me to come and cover the inaugural Arajet flight from Montreal to Santo Domingo comes November 7 as I won’t be available to cover the October 24 inaugural flight coming from Toronto as I will be in Asia during October 24.
We will see if this November 7 Press Trip materializes and if it does, I will definitely share my experiences and content with you about Arajet and the destinations. Stay tuned! Come check back to my MoVernie BLOG often to see any updates about Arajet.
