A long-simmering pension dispute involving Suriname’s national airline, De Surinaamse Luchtvaart Maatschappij (SLM), has entered a new legal phase, with the carrier confirming it will launch an appeal against a lower court’s ruling that ordered it to maintain monthly supplementary pension payments for retired former workers. The original lawsuit was brought by 16 retired SLM employees, led by former staff member Guno Stekkel, who alleged systemic failures in the airline’s handling of employee pension contributions dating back decades.
According to the claimants, during their active employment with SLM, regular pension premium contributions were automatically deducted from their monthly salaries. However, these withheld funds were never fully remitted to the national Suriname Pension Fund, as required by law. This shortfall left the pension fund with insufficient coverage to pay out full retirement benefits to the affected former workers, resulting in mandatory cuts to their monthly pension payments.
To offset these reductions, SLM voluntarily began paying a monthly supplementary allowance to bridge the gap between the reduced fund payouts and full expected benefits. But the retired employees argued that this supplementary payment was never formally codified in the company’s official pension regulations. Its continuation depended entirely on the airline’s willingness to maintain the payments, leaving retirees in constant uncertainty about their future retirement income, a situation the claimants described as a prolonged violation of their legal rights.
The cantonal court that heard the original case largely sided with the retirees’ arguments. In its May 12, 2026 ruling, the court found that SLM’s failure to remit already-withheld pension premiums to the fund constituted a clear breach of the employer’s statutory obligations. The court further ruled that the persistent uncertainty surrounding the future of the supplementary payments created an ongoing unlawful situation for the retired workers, who rely on fixed income to cover basic living costs.
In its ruling, the court also rejected SLM’s argument that the company’s current organizational and financial challenges should excuse it from its pension obligations. The carrier had cited multiple ongoing economic pressures, including the lingering aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, soaring regional inflation, and rising competition from other international airlines as factors that strained its budget. The court made clear that these broader economic headwinds do not release SLM from its legal responsibility to resolve the pension shortfall it created.
Alongside ordering SLM to continue making the supplementary payments until the pension fund reaches a sufficient coverage level to pay full benefits without cuts, the court also ordered the airline to cover all legal costs associated with the lawsuit. Crucially, the ruling was declared immediately enforceable, meaning SLM must comply with the payment order even while pursuing its appeal, with no delay in implementation pending the higher court’s review.
SLM has now formally filed its appeal, and the case will next be reviewed on its full merits by the Suriname Court of Justice. The appeal process will give SLM the opportunity to present its full legal argument outlining why it believes the original ruling should be overturned or amended, setting the stage for a final resolution to a dispute that has upended retirement planning for dozens of former airline employees.