If you thought local air travel was already expensive, then you'd better prepare to go a little deeper into your pockets.
Passengers are now required to pay an additional five dollar surcharge - when purchasing local airline tickets.
Seems like a tax to us, but in a less than artful euphemism, it's called a -Rider Fee- which has now been implemented by the Belize Airports Authority. According to the Authority, this new tax is necessary - and will be used as a way to secure loans to expand several airports in the country- including the one most urgently in need which is the Belize Municipal Airport. Today 7news spoke with the Managing Director of BAA, Kenworth Tillett who told us more.
Kenworth Tillett, Managing Director of BAA
"Basically the authority has to upgrade and expand several of the airstrips across Belize in particular the Belize municipal at this moment is in need of an expansion and as you can see it is fairly bad condition. We have no subventions or any other kind of budget to do this, so for safety purposes we must upgrade and we must expand and therefore we need to
seek funding to do it. And whenever you do that you need to pay off the loans that you are going to acquire. In the better interest of the flying public we have instituted this rider to meet these obligations. At the point of purchase a customer will be charged in the ticket a $5.00 rider for the purchase of that fare. Nobody likes to implement any kind of taxes and certainly it would not be in the best interest of everybody just to levy a tax but it is very important that we work on these air strips that we bring the system up to some safety standard and we have to pay for it so we have to levy these taxes."
To date - the Belize Airports Authority has upgraded and improved Corozal's Ranchito airstrip, Dangriga's Pelican Airstrip and is currently working on the San Pedro Airport.
Channel 7
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