by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Wed. June 7, 2023
On Tuesday, June 6, the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) announced its newly formed partnership with JetBlue airlines. The airline, which is based in New York, will be offering the first-ever nonstop flight from the John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York to the Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA).
This nonstop service will make New York the 11th city in the United States from which airline passengers can travel directly to Belize, and JetBlue will throughout the year be making round trips to and from Belize three times a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. The inaugural flight is slated to take place on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.
CEO of the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, Nicole Solano, describes the new partnership with JetBlue as “big news”.
“We’re really excited. We’ve been talking to JetBlue for a long time, and their announcement to come directly from New York is extremely good news for us in the tourism industry, but not only for tourism but for the diaspora as well — Belizeans living in New York and want to come home, as well as Belizeans who want to go to New York to visit their family and friends. So it’s a very important gateway setting for us,” she said.
“… What is very good: a lot of these flights come only in the winter months; and the season, they’ve indicated to us that it will be year-round. The reason they’ve made that decision is because they looked at statistics [and] the numbers and they can see that it will work. They’re optimistic that [the] flight will be beneficial for them, so they have made that decision,” CEO Solano added.
Hon. Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, expressed similar sentiments. “This is a huge win for our ongoing efforts to make Belize accessible to more U.S. visitors, with JFK being one of the biggest air travel hubs for tens of millions of travelers,” he said.
As of April 2023, more than 68% of all overnight arrivals to Belize came from the United States.