TACA ends direct Miami flight

They originally suspended the service almost a year ago, but government pressure and requests from the Belize Tourism Board made them reactivate it in June. But even with alterations in the schedule to make it more attractive, in the end, Grupo TACA’s direct flight to Miami just wasn’t carrying enough passengers. This Friday TACA will make its last direct run and from then on travelers will have to go through El Salvador. Grupo TACA’s agent in Belize Johnny Searle, who was among those encouraging the company to keep the route, spoke to News Five today.

Johnny Searle, Grupo TACA

“We’ve had some problems with that Miami route, and as much as TACA would not be carrying enough passengers to make the flight pay, that is not necessarily because of the number of passengers between Miami and Belize. But also they have to fly the aircraft over short routes and a jet aircraft is not an efficient aircraft over short routes. So in cutting back on some of the short flights that TACA had been operating, they decided that coupled with the reduction in passengers they’ve had from Miami to Belize, that they would withdraw the service, the direct service. They will be operating a service that goes from here to San Salvador to Miami. That’ll be an evening service, getting to Miami fairly late and there will be an early morning flight from Miami to San Salvador, 7:00 in the morning, bringing passenger from there to Belize at about 9:30 in the morning. So there will be some compensatory measures taken, but there is nothing like the direct flight, I have to confess”

Johnny Searle’s travel agency, Belize Global has been Grupo TACA’s agent in Belize for almost 20 years.