Q & A with Hennk R. Fitz Jim, General Manager for Surinam Airways in the United States of America
Q & A with Hennk R. Fitz Jim, General Manager for Surinam Airways in the United States of America
Founded in 1955 and officially established in 1962, Surinam Airways started offering its international flights two years later and in 1975 it introduced its transatlantic service. Today, the airline is the only company from the South American country providing services overseas; it hooks up Miami with Paramaribo and Aruba and it’s looking forward to establishing new routes in the region from that Floridian city.
Is the company going to open a new destination out of Miami?
We have three flights to Miami, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Earlier this year, we slashed the number of flights to two because the season had a really slow going, but we’re back with three flights since late June. We’re planning to open other destinations. We’re presently flying Miami-Aruba-Paramaribo, but we are studying other destinations such as Georgetown and Cayenne for connections out of Miami.
What planes do you operate with?
We operate Boeing 737-300 aircraft, with 8 seats in Business and 118 seats in Economy.
Are you planning to buy more planes?
We recently revamped our fleet. We were flying MD-82 and we got Boeing 737-300, as well as the Airbus A340 for the Amsterdam route.
What national companies fly in Surinam?
We have three other national companies in Surinam, but they are operating domestic flights, they don’t do international routes just as Surinam Airways, which is a state-owned airline. It’s managed as a private company, but it’s one hundred-percent owned by the State of Surinam. We have routes in the region to Aruba, Port of Spain (Trinidad), Curacao, Cayenne, Belem in Brazil, Miami… We also have Airbus A340s flying to Amsterdam, Holland.
How many passengers does the company transport on a yearly basis?
Between 220,000 and 230,000.
What’s the favorite destination out of Surinam?
Amsterdam is our main route. Holland is a very strong destination, due to the historical ties between Surinam and that country, which was our metropolis until 1975. There are still strong ties. We operate five weekly flights to Amsterdam, and we are working to have daily flights this year.
Do you have codeshares with other airlines?
We had a joint operation, a codeshare with KLM five years ago and we still continue cooperating. In the United States we have no codeshares; we have inter-airline deals with Delta and Northwest, but no codeshares.
Do you have any relations with Air France or Spain’s Air Europa?
No, in terms of operations. We do have relations with Air France, as they are in charge of tuning up our Airbus jetliners. That’s all.
Who are your regular customers in the United States? Where do you fly the most, to Aruba or Paramaribo?
We include both destinations into one flight. There are some seasons when we have more inflows to Aruba, and there are others when Paramaribo is the name of the game. We kicked off our operations in Miami back in August, 2008. After some 16 years out of the American market, we started the service out of Florida. And we are still working the market. Though I shall say that the market is more stabilized to Paramaribo, while the market tends to be seasonal to Aruba.
We have passengers coming to visit friends or relatives, vacation tourists and business travelers. Surinam is currently working hard on the tourism area. There is a huge amount of projects going on, and there is a joint effort among the government, tourism organizations, tour operators and other sectors. Surinam Airways is working with them to put our tourism product into a higher level and reel in a larger share of the tourism market.
