KLM
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KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij
Callsign: KLM
Founded: 1919
Hubs: Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Frequent flyer program: Flying Blue
Member lounge: KLM Crown Lounge
Alliance: SkyTeam
Fleet size: 176 + 28 orders (KLM, KLM Cargo, KLM Cityhopper)
Destinations: 128 (KLM, KLM Cargo, KLM Cityhopper)
Parent company: Air France-KLM
Company slogan: ''Journeys of Inspiration''
Headquarters: Amstelveen, The Netherlands
Key people: Albert Plesman (founder) P. F. Hartman (CEO), F. Gagey (CFO)
KLM can also refer to KLM (Human Computer Interaction).
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Dutch: Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, literally Royal Aviation Company; usual English translation: Royal Dutch Airlines) is the national airline of the Netherlands and is part of Air France-KLM. KLM's headquarters is in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, near its hub Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
KLM operates domestic and worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 destinations. Its main base is Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. KLM is the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name. It has 30,118 employees (as of March 2007). The merging of KLM with Air France in May 2004 created Air France-KLM. Air France-KLM is incorporated under French law with headquarters at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, France. Both Air France and KLM continue to fly under their distinct brand names. Air France-KLM is part of the SkyTeam alliance with Delta Air Lines, Aeromˇxico, Korean Air, Czech Airlines, Alitalia, Northwest Airlines, Aeroflot, China Southern Airlines and Continental Airlines.
History
KLM 777-200ER aircraft at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
KLM was founded on 7 October 1919, making it the oldest carrier in the world still operating under its original name, though the company stopped operating during the Second World War, apart from the operations in the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean. The first KLM flight was on 17 May 1920, from Croydon Airport, London to Amsterdam carrying two British journalists and a number of newspapers. It was flown by an Aircraft Transport and Travel Airco DH.16, callsign G-EALU, piloted by Jerry Shaw. In 1920 KLM carried 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight. In 1921 KLM started scheduled services. By 1926 it was offering flights to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremen, Copenhagen, and Malmo; using primarily Fokker F2 & Fokker F.III. KLM was also the first airline to fly to Manchester Airport, using a DC-2 via Doncaster.
Intercontinental service to the Netherlands East Indies (today's Republic of Indonesia) started in 1929. This was for several years the world's longest scheduled route. The service used Fokker F.VIIb, although the first non-scheduled KLM flight had been in 1924 by Fokker F7 registration H-NACC piloted by van der Hoop. In 1930 KLM carried 15,143 passengers. The first transatlantic KLM route was between Amsterdam and Cura¨ao in December 1934 using the Fokker F-XVIII ''Snip.'' In the 1940s the KLM was the only civilian airline operating the Douglas DC-5. On 21 May 1946, KLM was the first continental European airline to launch scheduled service to New York. In 1950 KLM carried 356,069 passengers. On 25 July 1957, the airline introduced its first flight simulator for the Douglas DC-7C - the last KLM aircraft with piston engines - which opened the first trans-polar route from Amsterdam via Anchorage to Tokyo on November 1, 1958.
In March 1960, KLM introduced the first Douglas DC-8 jet into its fleet. In 1966, KLM introduced the Douglas DC-9 on European and Middle East routes. The new terminal buildings at Schiphol Airport opened in April 1967 and in 1968, the Douglas DC-8-63 entered service. With 244 seats it was the largest airliner of the time. KLM was the first airline to put the higher gross weight Boeing 747-200B into service in February 1971 with Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines, beginning the era of widebody jets. In 1980, KLM carried 9,715,069 passengers. In 1983, it reached agreement with Boeing to convert some of its Boeing 747-200s to stretched upper deck configuration. The work started in 1984 at the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington and finished in 1986. The converted aircraft were called Boeing 747-200SUD, which the airline operated in addition to Boeing 747-300s. In June 1989, KLM introduced the Boeing 747-400. Later that year, in July, KLM acquired 20 per cent of Northwest Airlines, starting an alliance between the two airlines. In 1990, KLM carried 16,000,000 passengers. In March 1994, KLM and Northwest Airlines introduced World Business Class on intercontinental routes, and in July 1995, KLM introduced its Boeing 767-300ER.
In March and June 2002, KLM announced it would renew its intercontinental fleets by replacing the Boeing 767s, Boeing 747-300s, and eventually the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 with Boeing 777-200ERs and Airbus A330-200s. Some 747s will be first to retire. The MD-11s will remain in service until 2014/2015. The first Boeing 777 was received on October 25, 2003, entering commercial service on the Amsterdam-Toronto route, while the first Airbus A330-200 was introduced on August 25, 2005 and entered commercial service on the Amsterdam-Washington Dulles route. In March 2007 KLM started using the Amadeus reservation system, along with partner Kenya Airways.
