Surinam Airways (SLM), still has not paid the mandatory passenger safety fee. The SLM cur-rently owes Casas about 2 million American dollars. Each passenger who catches a SLM flight pays the passenger safety fee of $6. The SLM must transfer this fee to Casas. Several years ago Casas had already sounded the alarm because the SLM failed to tranfer the money. As a result of the non payments the certification of the Airbus A340-300 which the SLM wanted to ob-tain could not happen. At that time Casas explained that the SLM had not paid its bills since 2019. Back then the SLM owed Casas $1 million. Fast forward a few years and the debt has ri-sen to about $2 million. Casas needs the passenger safety to finance its investment programs. Last Tuesday the European Union “closed its airspace” to aircraft registered in Tanzania and Suriname. The European Commission updated the EU aviation safety list, which lists airlines subject to an opera-ting ban or operational restrictions within the European Union because they do not meet international safety standards. Based on this revision, all air carriers certified in Suri-name and Tanzania have been included in the list and can no longer operate within the EU. The reason, explains the Commissioner for Sustainable Transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, is the “serious deficiencies in national aviation oversight” for the two sta-tes. “We urge both countries to address these problems promptly.” The EC pointed out that Casas failed to operate in accordance with the international standards of the ICAO and that this puts the safety of the passengers and aviation at risk. It also pointed out that there is a shortage of qualified personnel.