August 26, 2026
Arajet is the odd one out in our airline reviews: a Dominican carrier, not a Colombian one — and still worth knowing about if Colombia is on your itinerary. It is the Caribbean’s new low-cost airline, it flies to Bogotá, Medellín and Cartagena, and its first commercial flight ever, back in September 2022, landed in Colombia. It is also a strict budget product with a booking trap we will get to quickly: the cheapest Arajet fare includes no carry-on bag — and one mid-tier bundle includes a checked bag but still no carry-on.
Who Arajet Is
Arajet launched in 2022 out of Santo Domingo, backed by Bain Capital and Griffin Global Asset Management, and flew its first route that September — Santo Domingo to Barranquilla. Today it runs an all-Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet, 14 aircraft as of early 2026 and one of the youngest fleets in the Americas, from two Dominican hubs — Santo Domingo and Punta Cana — to more than twenty cities: six in the United States (New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Orlando and San Juan), Toronto and Montréal in Canada, and a South American network that reaches Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Lima and Santiago.
In Colombia, as of August 2026, it serves three cities from Santo Domingo: Bogotá, Medellín and Cartagena. Barranquilla, the airline’s very first destination, is no longer on the route map.
Is Arajet Safe?
The record so far is clean. In four years of flying Arajet has had no accidents; the one incident on file is a tail scrape on takeoff in December 2024, on a Toronto to Punta Cana flight, with no injuries. The airline is still too young for the big safety indexes to have scored it the way they score Avianca or LATAM, so we will not quote a star rating that does not exist. What you can lean on is the structural picture: a single modern aircraft type, delivered new, in a fleet only a few years old.
Why It Matters for a Colombia Trip
The Caribbean add-on. Nonstop, Arajet connects Bogotá, Medellín and Cartagena with the Dominican Republic at low-cost fares. If your trip pairs Colombia with a Caribbean beach week in Punta Cana or Santo Domingo, this is the direct budget link.
The one-stop to North America. Arajet sells connecting itineraries through Santo Domingo, which makes it a budget one-stop between Colombia and New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Orlando, San Juan, Toronto or Montréal. When nonstop fares out of Bogotá spike, pricing the same dates through Santo Domingo is a thirty-second comparison worth doing. Two cautions: the connection adds real hours, and Orlando here means Sanford, a separate smaller airport well outside the city — check which airport you are landing at before booking.
The Fares — Read This Before Comparing Prices
Arajet sells four bundles, and the names do not mean what you might assume:
- Basic — a small personal item (6 kg) and nothing else. No carry-on suitcase, random seat assignment, no changes allowed.
- Classic — adds the 12 kg carry-on bag and seat selection. For most travelers this is the real minimum fare.
- Comfort — a 23 kg checked bag and seat selection, but still no carry-on bag. Easy to misread: checking a suitcase does not buy the roller bag back into the cabin.
- Extra — carry-on plus checked bag, seat choice across the cabin, and flight changes without change fees (fare difference still applies).
When you compare Arajet against Avianca, LATAM or Wingo, compare like against like — Arajet’s Classic against the other airline’s carry-on fare. Allowances and dimensions live on Arajet’s own baggage pages, which is where we check before booking, because they change.
No Miles, No Program — On Purpose
Arajet has no frequent flyer program at all, and says so plainly: its loyalty strategy is low fares, a growing network, new aircraft and service — not points. If your travel runs on miles and status, that is a real cost hiding in the cheap ticket. If you fly it once a year to the beach, it is irrelevant.
What Flying It Is Like
A single-type budget operation: 185-seat 737 MAX 8s with a small extra-legroom section up front, no seat-back screens, no WiFi — download your entertainment before boarding — and buy-on-board snacks and drinks rather than free service. Seats have USB power. Flyers also report that check-in can require the in-person counter even after checking in online, and lines move slowly — arrive with more airport time than the fare suggests.
The Verdict
A situational tool, and a good one. Arajet is the budget way to bolt a Dominican beach onto a Colombia trip, and an alternative worth pricing for one-stop trips between Colombia and the US East Coast or Canada. Book Classic unless you truly travel with nothing, remember that Comfort does not include a carry-on, and do not expect miles. For the airlines you will actually fly within Colombia, see our reviews of Avianca, LATAM, Wingo, JetSMART and SATENA — and our Copa Airlines review for the other way to connect across the region.
