Surinam Airways

Miami to Aruba for a weekend getaway. Fare was much cheaper than American Airlines. B737-300 was in good shape. The crew was friendly and professional. Contrary to AA Surinam Airways serves a light hot meal each-way with free surinamese beer. Both segments on-time. The only draw-back is that they only operate on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. However if you can get past that you're in for a good-quality product.

Paramaribo to Port of Spain. check in slow but okay - left just 15 mins late. Breakfast - orange juice and slice of cake. FA's helpful and friendly - overall better than expected.

Just like Rogier's experience only in January 2003 - broken-down plane on flight from Cayenne to Paramaribo meant that my partner and I experienced a significant delay (ended up catching a flight on Rutaca Airlines a Venezuelan carrier at 4am the next morning). Communication between airline and passengers extremely poor led to almost hysteria at Cayenne airport. However Suriname Airways provided us with transport back to Cayenne where they put me and my partner up in the Best Western before transporting us back to the airport. So no complaints on that score; they did what they could to alleviate a bad situation.

SLM flies 3 times a week from Amsterdam to Paramaribo and vice versa with their own Boeing 747-300. SLM has an excellent service on all levels and they are still trying to improve services to passengers to expand their routes to other South American countries.

Cayenne-Paramaribo old MD-82 short trip (45 min.) arrived on time. Paramaribo-Cayenne old plane was broken and repairs would take days. It was their only plane. They had to rent an even older plane (with defunct lav) from Curaçao. An 8 h delay on a 45 min trip. As a result I missed my flight from Cayenne to Paris. Taking an earlier flight was not an option as they fly PBM-CAY only 3 times a week. Taxi rides from and to the airport + hotel bill: Surinam Airways wouldn't pay a penny. When I complained they replied that the 'change of schedule' was announced on the radio so I should have known and they are not responsible for anything. No chance of flying another airline. State-owned Surinam Airways has a monopoly on most routes in and out of Surinam.