American Airlines marks 15 years in Belize

With little fanfare, today American Airlines celebrated its fifteenth anniversary operating in Belize. According to country manager Luis Alpuche, back in 1990, there was only one daily American airlines flight to Miami. Today, there are two round trips to Miami and a third connection through Dallas. This afternoon Alpuche told News Five that the airline industry has played a vital role in sustaining and enhancing Belize’s tourism product.

Luis Alpuche, Country Manager, American Airlines
?If you see the growth that we have since 1990 when we used to operate–or Belize used to operate two or three carriers, namely TACA, TAN and SAHSA. Now you have five carriers operating in Belize, four of them American U.S. based carriers. Talking about the capacity, it?s been tremendous growth. We have an average of seven hundred and fifty seats flying into Belize and out of Belize, so that?s the capacity we have to bring in passengers and bring in potential tourists to Belize. I mean it?s just been fantastic. And the growth has not stopped, it?s going to continue with the expansion of the runway and added facilities projected by the airport authorities for next year, I can only imagine that the capacity for the airlines and for American Airlines as well is going to grow.?

According to Alpuche, American is the world’s largest airline, which along with its regional subsidiaries, serves more than two hundred and forty cities in forty countries.