With winter temperatures approaching, New York-based JetBlue made its first trip to Belize. And lucky for me, I was one of the first to make the trip.
On the 6th of December, the airline became the only carrier to fly from JFK to Belize City (BZE) and will continue to offer the service three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
“Belize is an important tourist destination within Central America, and we couldn’t be more excited to add it to our route map and introduce a new offering to our customers in New York.” “This new route advances JetBlue’s leadership position in the Caribbean and Latin America, which represents one-third of our operations.”
Ready for my warm-weather getaway, I arrived at JFK’s Terminal 5 with just over an hour to go before boarding. My Mosaic status gave me priority in the security line and I was able to get through in under 10 minutes, even though it appeared to be a very busy morning. I could see the gate from quite a distance as there were balloons, Belizean Garafunda drummers and free breakfast tacos at the gate to celebrate the inaugural flight. JetBlue provided passengers with free Belizean T-shirts, hats and other goodies as well as a ribbon-cutting ceremony as part of the milestone.
After the welcome speeches, boarding began quickly and I walked excitedly onto the Airbus A320 that JetBlue cheekily named Sacre’ Bleu. This particular aircraft had a 3×3 configuration throughout, but no Mint section. There was, however, an “Even More Space” section where I found my seat. This section had plenty of legroom, as the name suggests, which also gave me extra space under the seat in front of me to place my bag.
The crew were incredibly friendly and seemed just as excited as the passengers, even putting mine and other guests’ bags in the overhead bins for us. Some of the crew were originally from Belize and now live in New York. Once everyone was seated, the captain came out to greet us. He told us that he was born and raised in Belize and that his parents were on board, which made the flight extra special.
To celebrate the inaugural flight, the passengers played a game of in-flight bingo with prizes, while the flight attendants encouraged guests to take as many snacks as they wanted. Before I knew it, we had reached Belize and I had to hop on a second, much smaller plane to Ambergris Caye, where I stayed at Alaia Belize, considered one of the best all-inclusive resorts in Belize.
The JFK-Belize City route follows a recent flurry of new JetBlue service, including JFK-St. Kitts, Boston-Grenada and LAX-Bahamas.
With more additions on the horizon, JetBlue will expand its transatlantic service with seasonal routes from JFK and Boston to Dublin beginning next March and from JFK to Edinburgh in May.
JetBlue will also offer more service to Paris with a route from Boston starting in April, following its route from New York, which launched last June.