Local airfares rise over ten percent

It has taken a while for our local airlines to follow the lead of their larger international colleagues but the high cost of fuel has driven at least one Belizean carrier to raise fares. The increases by Tropic Air average between ten and eleven percent, with a round trip from Belize Municipal to San Pedro climbing from one hundred and twenty-one dollars to a hundred and thirty-four and a return ticket to Punta Gorda coming in at four hundred and one dollars, up thirty-seven dollars from the old price. The price of jet fuel for the Cessna Turboprops currently stands at nine fifty-nine per gallon and is likely to climb much higher in the next shipment as record oil prices are reflected at the pump. Efforts to reach executives at Belize’s other major local airline, Maya Island Air, were unsuccessful. The higher fares on Tropic are effective beginning July first.