Tropic Air today commemorated its 25th year serving Belize. As part of the celebrations, the entire media corp was taken to San Pedro on a brand new Cessna Caravan where President of Tropic John Grief explained that the airline started from very humble beginnings.
Alfonso Noble Reporting, [From San Pedro]
Looking at Tropic air’s fleet of 7 Cessna Caravans including this silver tailed one that mark’s its 25th anniversary you wouldn’t think that the air carrier had a less than modest beginning.
John Grief, Tropic Air President
“And then when I got out of university in ’78 and came to Belize there was no aviation here in San Pedro. All the tourists had to be routed through the municipal airstrip and it was just a big inconvenience. My parents were in the hospitality industry and it just seems to all of us that it would be a good place to have an airline.”
Alfonso Noble,
“What size airplane did you start off with?
John Grief,
“A three place Cessna. Just me and 3 passengers and hardly any room for bags.”
Since that time of a one man show the company has grown to employ 180 people serving 9 destinations in Belize and Guatemala. But while growth and success have become the main pillars supporting Tropic’s ventures, Grief admits that there are obstacles that they need to fly over. Central among them are changing times.
John Grief,
“We live in a different society than we did 25 years ago. Production efficiencies have made a lot of jobs redundant and people are out of work. Globally fuel prices are over $50 a barrel and four of the top five American airlines are either in bankruptcy or are claiming or threatening bankruptcy. So these are challenges that we have to deal with. Our way of dealing with it is through efficiency. We have made our operation more efficient. We’ve taken our chances. The airport you see behind you is over $3 million but we felt we needed to be ready for what could be an excellent tourist season so it’s really just more of the same. We found a formula that works and we just keep doing it over and over.”
As part of its silver anniversary tropic is holding various promotions for customers.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
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