ZANDERIJ- On Thursday the long awaited new Boeing 737-800 of Surinamese Airlines finally touched down the Johan Adolf Pengel airport of Suriname.

The airline had to do without its own aircraft for almost two years, after the previously leased aircraft were repossessed by the leasing company due to non-payment. This heralded an extremely turbulent period for the airline, which even threatened for some time to go completely belly-up, in a situation further aggravated by additional damage from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

An interim management team at the airline has been working for months to get another aircraft in its own livery.

Regional flights

Now that the airline once again has an aircraft that can be flown by its own crew, it can also start working on the cautious recovery of the regional network, including flights to Aruba, Curaçao and Miami, but also to the neighbouring countries of Guyana and Brazil.

The survival of the SLM has regained a bit of importance after American Airlines announced that it would once again call it quits on the route between Paramaribo and Miami. Flights from Copa, via Panama to the region, have also not quite brought the country what was expected in advance.

With the arrival of the Boeing 737, it is hoped that the Company will slowly but surely find its way back to the top.