(de Ware Tijd)PARAMARIBO – Surinam Airways (SLM), Suriname’s national airline was close to having a
year without losses. Cuts on the one hand and increased revenues on the other made a break-even possible until September. Several of the airline’s departments even published positive results. Revenues grew with 22 percent and the airline transported 12 percent more passengers compared to 2010. The decline started in October/November, when the company’s flagship, the Airbus A340 was grounded longer than expected. It seems that foreign partners Air France-KLM, who do the regular maintenance for SLM, were careless, causing a US$ 2 million loss for the Surinamese carrier, SLM director Edwald Henshuys reported at the End-of-the-Year celebration.
‘We have a contract with Air France-KLM for regular maintenance at a fixed price. It’s impossible that we suddenly have to pay more for added errors,’ Henshuys says. On top of that the company was suddenly faced with more problems after the maintenance; Air France grounded the plane for an additional six day at the start of November. Inspection by the SLM management proved the administrative error on the other side, preventing the machine from being grounded much longer and losses from becoming much higher. ‘We’ll question them about the high bill and we’re even considering a claim for damages,’ the SLM top official states. The SLM has learned the lessons from this nasty episode with its foreign partner, who at the same time is its main competitor. The maintenance contract with Air France-KLM will probably be cancelled for a better deal with another partner. SLM will invest in capacity strengthening of its own technical departments so that it will not be dependent on third parties.
