by Charles Gladden
LADYVILLE, Belize District, Tues. Nov. 15, 2022
Belize’s Tropic Air will now be offering a non-stop flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and an inaugural fight departed from the Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA) for Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport in Honduras at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 15. It is now one of four international flights offered by Tropic Air to travelers.
San Pedro Sula becomes the airline’s second destination in Honduras, in addition to Roatán, and the 12th overall in its network.
At an inaugural ceremony inside the airport, the CEO of Tropic Air, Steven Schulte, stated, “Tropic Air was founded to bring tourists to San Pedro. Together with our partner hotels and the Belize Tourism Board, we’ve had great success in growing tourism in all of Belize. The airline industry is the door through which tourists arrive. Today, we’re opening another door to San Pedro Sula to continue that growth.”
He went on to note, “… Honduras has always been friendly. It has always been a friend of Tropic Air. We have had many invitations to fly [to] Honduras by government officials throughout the years …”
Schulte told local reporters that it will take an estimated two years for the airline to receive returns on the investment.
“The tourism industry is never static, and so we’re always looking for new opportunities to increase the [number of] tourists coming to Belize. The regional flights help us connect with some of the flights that don’t come to Belize [regularly]. COPA comes once a week, so this will give us a connection to COPA through San Pedro Sula. Our flight to San Salvador also gives us that connection. I think that this is in the very early stages of regional development, and it will take us perhaps two years before we will see any return on this flight. But, we have to start at some time, and I think with the market in Belize full and expanding, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to expand it further,” he said.
Minister of Tourism, Hon. Anthony Mahler, in referring to Schulte’s projections, said, “[As] Mr. Shulte said, airlift into a country for the overnight sector is the lifeblood. We have put an inordinate amount of effort into building airlift into Belize, going to routes, going to the airlines’ headquarters, [meeting] them, [talking] to them, and [pitching] Belize, to provide incentives. We promised two years ago that we will do everything possible to build [an] airlift. With the partnership with Tropic Air, we have done so again.”
To mark the inaugural flight’s departure, there was a small ceremonial cake, and ribbon-cutting.
The initial two flights will depart from the PGIA twice a week to San Pedro Sula on Tuesdays and Thursdays.