It was a grand inauguration today for the new and improved Placencia Municipal Airport. The Airport which lost major revenue due to COVID-19 closed earlier this year and took advantage of the downtime to make major upgrades. These include a new runway lighting system that will facilitate both later flights and emergency med-evac to and from the Peninsula.
The inauguration which was attended by the Blue Economy and the Logistics and Public Utility ministers as well a host of Placencia residents precedes what is hoped to be new economic opportunities for the area. Here are a few words from Minister's Perez's keynote address made on that brand new runway earlier today.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"The renovation of the Placencia Municipal Airport supports one of the core strategic goals on the Belize Airport Authority and responds to the projected growth of passenger traffic at the domestic airports. Of course we are fully cognizant that the past months has been especially difficult for the community of Placencia and the aviation industry due to Covid travel restrictions and a decrease in numbers of persons visiting our country. The domestic pasenger movement has however remain consistent as in 2019 this sector totaled 35,695 passengers. I can say that the statistics are motivating as we see upward trend in the passenger movement at this aerodrome. With the renovations and relaxation of travel restrictions and the newly implemented goal standard policy we are expecting a similar upward trend in air traffic when the Placencia airport resumes operations."
Ilsa Villanueva, Village Chairperson, Placencia
"The whole peninsula is in awe because they have waited a long time for this. One reason is that many times they have complain that late flights always have trouble coming in or they have to stay in Belize City, so definitely the increase in overnight tourism will be great for us whenever we get back out of Covid pandemic. It's going to be huge."
