I don't recall a huge kerfuffle over the idea of making Placencia an international portal.
If Tropic deems it a good business move to fly in and out of San Pedro, it would be due to demand by tourists and not due to any thought of imprisoning tourists or depriving other locations of visitors.
Rivalry between locations in Belize seems counter-productive - we're all Belize and the more we work together the better it is for everybody!
Our "rival" is Mexico - so let's get those folks from Cancun down here pronto.
:-)