American Airlines - New Service from Los Angeles to Belize City Starting June 6, 2015

[jlevine]

I just noticed that American Airlines will be starting new nonstop service from Los Angeles to Belize City on June 6. The flights appear to run only on Saturday and Sunday. This is a nice addition to the Delta flight.

AA 23 departs LAX at 12:30 am (redeye) arrives BZE at 6:10am

AA 23 departs BZE at 8:55 am arrives LAX at 1:10pm

For the return trip, there is a 6am Tropic Air flight of San Pedro and a 6:15am flight out of Placencia that should provide enough of a layover for conencting back to Los Angeles.

I will definitely consider taking the LAX-BZE flight. As far as BZE-LAX, it's tough to get up early...especially after being in Belize for a week or two!

You can read the announcement here:

New nonstop domestic and international flights | American Airlines

 

[Downing]

Good to know.

Given that the LA flights are weekends only, I don't know that I'll ever use them. Right now, my usual route is American Airlines Portland --> Dallas --> Belize City -> Placencia and back. I can catch the 6:00 am flight out of Portland into Dallas and make it to Placencia in time for a late lunch. I usually leave on Friday since these flights are available seven days a week.

It's a little tight because flying down I have less than an hour in Dallas and have to switch terminals. So far so good, but I always worry that either my Portland flight could be delayed or my luggage doesn't make the transfer in Dallas. So far I've never had an issue, but sooner or later I'm going to be spending the night in Dallas having missed the second flight or in BZ City without my checked bag.

The flight out of BZ City back to Dallas leaves around mid-afternoon, giving me plenty of time to lounge around Placencia before I leave. Catching a break of dawn flight to go home is just not appealing.

But it's good to have options.

 

[jlevine]

Just a side note on Downing's comment about not receiving one's checked bag in Belize City. This happened to me on one of my trips. I filed a lost baggage claim at the airport. It turned out that my bag, rather than going to BZE when to BNE (I guess the N looks like a Z turned sideways) which is the code for Brisbane, Australia. So suitcase was shipped from Brisbane to Honolulu where it cleared customs and then went to I believe DFW and then Belize City where it cleared customs again. American Airlines then put in on a Tropic Air flight to San Pedro. All in all it took three days or four days for the bag to get back to me.

So, in the interim, I had to figure out where to buy underwear in San Pedro. I found a small selection at Wings near the airport. It was an interesting vacation to say the least. But, American Airlines did get my bag back. I was there for two weeks so I did appreciate getting everything back!

 

[Downing]

I remember years ago a story on the news about a guy in LA who got on a flight to Oakland only to learn after an hour or two after takeoff that the plane was going to Auckland. As in New Zealand. Oops! The airline admitted it was their fault as well and flew him back home on the next flight.