Budget Carrier Spirit Eyes Belize, Faces Uncertain Future

Last week, the Belize Tourism Board announced that Spirit Airlines would officially be coming to Belize this November and Belizeans all around were buzzing the excitement. The affordable airline plans to offer three one-way flights a week to Fort Lauderdale, starting at just eighty-five U.S. dollars. It’s exciting news for those whole to travel on a budget. But while the B.T.B. says that everything is clear for takeoff, there may be turbulence ahead. Just five months after recovering from bankruptcy, Spirit airlines revealed that the company is dealing with serious financial struggles and may not survive if it fails to raise profits and cut costs. Spirit further detailed that these strategies may include letting go hundreds of employees and reducing on scheduled flights. The Belize Tourism Board says the flights are still on track for November, but Spirit’s ongoing financial crisis raises concerns over the feasibility of these plans. Minister of Tourism, Anthony Mahler, shares some details on the negotiations that are employed to incentivized companies like Spirit to extend their routes to Belize.

 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“That’s why we try to give a lot of incentives in terms of the landing fees and all of that here in Belize. So we work closely with the management group at the airport. And so they provide some concessions as well. But we’ve also put some money on the table in terms of marketing and other things for these flight to come in. It’s not, specially after COVID, it hasn’t been cheap. We’ve done marketing, co-marketing with airlines for decades. And that continues to be our model, but it has become a lot more expensive to do.”

 

Reporter

“Yeah, you pay millions for them to come. I understand co-marketing is one thing. But let us be real, we di pay people fi come. We’re incentivizing carriers to fly to our destination.”

 

Anthony Mahler

“Some, yeah.”

 

Reporter

“Is it a worrying precedent for you, because then once you do it to one set, that becomes the universal expectation, and it increases with each destination because they’re talking Europe. They don’t have to put ten million on the table.”

 

Anthony Mahler

“No so much, man.”

 

Reporter

“Nearly eight.”

 

Anthony Mahler

“Close. But what I mean, the model has changed somewhat over the last four years, especially since COVID or five years. But we try to maintain it to marketing and other activities like that.”

 

Reporter

“Are airlines complaining because we know how fastidious they are. And I know that the airlines, the big ones, all of them really have been down eight, nine percent so  far up to the end of June, right? All of them were down. Have they been complaining and have you been having to offer them some comfort?”

 

Anthony Mahler

“Most have in terms of our traffic to Belize, we’ve held our numbers May and June, were a little bit soft. July, we rebounded robustly with almost ten percent increase over last year. And last year was a very strong July as well. And we believe that we will continue with our momentum going into the high season coming up, especially when we build capacity when these flights are put in place actually on the ground.”