Hi,
I did a trip to Belize from Europe this February. I went with Air France/KLM/Delta, which means that I went through the Atlanta airport.
I didn't find any direct flights from France (nor Switzerland or Amsterdam).
Here is my exact route:
Geneva (Air France) -> Paris (Air France) -> Atlanta (Delta) -> Belize City
Belize City (Delta) -> Atlanta (KLM) -> Amsterdam
A few comments on how I booked my tickets:
- when I can and it is not too much more expensive/long, I prefer Skyteam (I'm a Flying Blue frequent traveler).
- this was the route with less wait between flights. Which actually almost caused me to miss one of my flights because the previous one was late (I'll come back to that later).
- I could only book my tickets through the Delta mobile app. On the Air France/KLM website, they were not proposing the flights to Belize and I had error messages when I was trying to pay through the Delta website. And the cheapest tickets were with Delta directly, not through other travel website.
- I booked my flights less than one week before leaving for Belize, which means I might have have less choice than you, since it looks like you have better planning capacity than me ^^.
- If you are flexible, do not hesitate to check different dates (a lot of website have a "I am flexible" options), prices can be quite different from one day to the other.
Regarding other things to know, even if you only transit through the USA, you need to register for ESTA. I almost forgot to do that. I remembered this only the day before I left. Thankfully, it is almost immediate to register for it when you are French.
In Atlanta, you have to pass immigration even if you are only transiting, so plan for it. On the way to Belize, my flight from France was late, and of course, that day there were huge queues at immigration. The only way I got my following flight in time was because I argued for a while with the immigration officers for them to let me pass first. The argument that cut it was that my flight to Belize was the last flight there of the day (I proved it to them flight app in hand - I do travel a lot and have a large range of those on my phone), so they couldn't put me on another flight, as they said they would do. Even so, I barely managed it.
Also, you have to pass again through security in Atlanta, so careful for example if you bought some alcohol/liquids in bottles of more than 100mL in duty free. I bought some on the way back in Belize airport, and I had some issues again in Atlanta. But I'll stop here, I can rant for hours on American airports, and this post is already long enough.
Good point though about flying Delta, is that as long as there are some free seats left, I have always been upgraded with them (I am a Flying Blue Gold Member, but they did it also when I was "only" Silver).
If you need more details, you can ask here or contact me privately - I can use French if you prefer.
