PM Says Airport Critics Are “Jumping the Gun”: Nothing Signed
Prime Minister John Briceño says tourism stakeholders in San Pedro who are opposing a proposed new airport are “jumping the gun.” He says nothing has been signed, the project is still being studied, and a $600 million price tag circulating in public is wrong.
“I think that they’re jumping the gun.”
Briceño said the government sees a problem in San Pedro and has to plan beyond the short term. “As a government, we can’t think just tomorrow or next week or next year. We have to do long-term projections.”
“San Pedro is the tourism mecca.”
According to the Prime Minister, the number of landings at the San Pedro airport keeps increasing. He said the runway cannot be extended, which keeps larger aircraft out. A longer runway would mean bigger planes and fewer landings. “I mean, it’s unfortunate that the runway can’t be extended.”
Instead, the airport is served by small Cessnas carrying about 11 or 12 passengers each. Briceño said these planes sometimes have to circle the town waiting to land. “Sometimes they are flying around the town until there’s an opening for them to be able to land.”
He said the growth projections show the airport running out of space. “If we continue with the growth that we project, in the next five years, we’ll not be able to have space for them to land.”
The Prime Minister said that if the government does nothing, the same people who oppose a new airport will later ask why it did nothing. He named the Belize Tourism Industry Association. “These very same people from BTIA […] will be the very same persons that will be coming up to us and say, well, why didn’t you do anything? You knew this was happening, but you did nothing.”
He said congestion in the center of town is also hurting tourism, and visitors complain about it in surveys. “Tourists in their surveys, they complain bitterly about the congestion and so many golf carts all over the place.”
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“We have a responsibility, not only to San Pedro, but to the entire tourism industry.”
Briceño said the government has been working with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which has a consultant working on a plan to determine whether a new airport is feasible. An IDB request for consultants dated March 24, 2025 says construction is planned to begin in 2027 and be completed in 2029, and that the site of the current airport could be used for real estate.
The Prime Minister said the government will meet with stakeholders once there is a plan. “We’ve not signed up.”
He rejected the figure that has been circulating. In a News Five report on Nov. 9, Jose Arceo, co-chair of Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development, put the project at $600 million.
“I heard somebody with a ridiculous number of $600 million. I don’t know where they get these things.”
He said the government will meet with the town council, the Belize Tourism Industry Association in San Pedro, the San Pedro business community and the Hotel Association. He said the government has also been meeting with airlines, and he named Tropic Air, Maya Island Air and Astrum Helicopters, as well as one other small airline. “All of them have been a part of discussion. All of them have said, yes, they want to be a part of that.”
According to the Prime Minister, the airlines are encouraging a public-private partnership, where the private and public sectors come together to build the development. He said he was surprised when the owner of one of the airlines began speaking out against the airport. “Not once have that person ever objected to this.”