(de Ware Tijd) PARMARIBO – Plans by national airline SLM to expand its operations in Brazil are delayed as the agreement between the two countries containing the details of this expansion is lost.
“We still await Parliament’s approval, but the document has not reached the legislature yet. We are investigating what happened,” says Gerard Brunings, chairman of the airline’s board of directors. The treaty must have gotten lost somewhere between the Ministries of Home Affairs and Transport, Communications and Tourism (TCT) and the State Council. For the time being, the SLM only flies to Belem, while there are plans to add three other destinations in Northern Brazil to the flight schedule. Yet the new routes will likely be opened next year due to the bureaucratic delay.
Brunings emphasizes that the airline must have the agreement in hand in order to do business. Waiting any longer means a potentially lucrative market will remain far off. The millions of potential passengers in the north of Brazil take long flights to the south first, transfer to another flight and continue their journey to Europe. Brunings is pleased when he thinks of this option. “Brazilians do not need visa for the Netherlands, and this is a potentially lucrative market we have not tapped into before.”
Although the airline came short of its goal of making profits in 2011, it definitely expects losses this year due to all the ongoing expansions and transformations. “I think we can look forward to making a profit in 2013, and this year we must try to break even,” Brunings says. In the past three years, the airline’s losses gradually dropped to US$ one million in 2011, but there are still huge debts to pay. The management team considers entering new markets as the key to making the airline profitable again.
