Surinam Airways Network, 2012

A colorful constellation of countries and constituencies shows the recent extent of Surinam Airways's routes. For certain the geography is not to scale, as tiny Curaçao is more massive than giant Brazil, and the compact Netherlands is as large as Florida. Belem is shown nearly as far away as the distant Dutch home country. A similar version shown on Flickr shows neighboring Georgetown, Guyana.

Surinam Airways Network, 2010-2012

As vintage as this map may seem graphically, the A340 was only acquired by Surinam Airways in November 2009, so the image must be relatively recent. From its base at Paramaribo, the state carrier flies up and down the brow of South America, from Belem in Brazil and up into the West Indies, linking Port of Spain with the Dutch-associated Aruba and Curaçao, but surprisingly not Bonaire. The Caribbean connection finally terminates at Miami, from where, the map indicates, other airlines connect to unspecified American cities.

Barbados, as well as Georgetown, Guyana, and Cayenne, French Guiana, are all shown but seemly not part of the system.

Quite apart from this regional spread is the airline's pride of service, for which the diminutive carrier has employed wide body jumbos and quad-engined Airbuses: the trans-Atlantic span to the seat of the former colonial power: Amsterdam. Weekly flights run nonstop to Schiphol.