Suri­nam Air­ways (SLM) is set to rein­tro­duce flights to T&T af­ter sus­pend­ing its ser­vices to this coun­try last May af­ter near­ly three decades of op­er­a­tions in Port-of-Spain.

In an­nounc­ing its re­gion­al flight sched­ule for the pe­ri­od March 26 to No­vem­ber 5 this year, SLM stat­ed that Port-of-Spain will act as a stopover on the route be­tween Para­mari­bo and Cu­raçao.

SLM, is the flag car­ri­er of Suri­name, and op­er­ates from its hub at Jo­han Adolf Pen­gel In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Flight num­ber PY 729 is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain every Wednes­day from March 29 to Oc­to­ber 25 around 5:20 pm from Para­mari­bo, be­fore de­part­ing to Cu­raçao around 6:05 pm.

Flight num­ber PY 730 is then ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain every Wednes­day at 10:05 pm from Cu­ra­cao be­fore de­part­ing at 10:50 pm to Para­mari­bo.

Flight num­ber PY 729 is then ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain every Sun­day from March 26 to Oc­to­ber 22 around 7 am from Para­mari­bo be­fore de­part­ing to Cu­raçao around 7:45 am.

Flight num­ber PY 730 is then ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain every Sun­day at 11:45 am from Cu­ra­cao be­fore de­part­ing at 12:30 pm to Para­mari­bo.

“With this ex­tra ca­pac­i­ty, Suri­nam Air­ways is re­spond­ing to the de­mand for an ex­pan­sion of trav­el op­tions,” the air­line stat­ed in a re­lease.

“Suri­nam Air­ways is pleased to be able to con­tribute to im­prov­ing the trav­el ex­pe­ri­ence. This gives fur­ther sub­stance to the re­cov­ery plan, which should lead to an ex­pan­sion of the earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty and re­cov­ery of our com­pa­ny,” it stat­ed.

All flights will be op­er­at­ed with a Boe­ing 737-800, with 12 seats in Busi­ness Class and 138 in Econ­o­my Class.

That Boe­ing 737-800 joined the SLM’s fleet on De­cem­ber 9, on a dry lease from air­craft leas­ing com­pa­ny Aer­Cap.

The Boe­ing 737-800, reg­is­tered as PZ-TCP in Suri­name, was pre­vi­ous­ly op­er­at­ed for Caribbean Air­lines, be­fore the car­ri­er re­placed it ear­li­er this year with its Boe­ing 737 MAX air­craft.

The de­liv­ery of the 737 means that SLM has its own air­craft in its fleet again af­ter more than two years.

The plane was re­cent­ly named Sabaku.

Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Steven Gonesh de­scribed the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the lease as a “very im­por­tant mo­ment for Suri­nam Air­ways af­ter a tur­bu­lent pe­ri­od”.

“Hav­ing your own fly­ing equip­ment and iden­ti­ty on­board is of em­i­nent im­por­tance,” Gonesh is re­port­ed to have said.