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, Aeroméxico, Korean Air, Czech Airlines, Alitalia, Northwest Airlines, Aeroflot, China Southern Airlines and Continental Airlines.
Founded 1919
Hubs Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Frequent flyer program Flying Blue
Member lounge KLM Crown Lounge
Alliance SkyTeam
Subsidiaries KLM Cityhopper
Fleet size 115 (+15 orders) incl.cargo
excl.subsidiaries
Destinations 125 incl.subsidiaries
Parent company Air France-KLM
Company slogan “Journeys of Inspiration”
Headquarters Amstelveen, The Netherlands[1]
Key people Albert Plesman (founder) P. F. Hartman (CEO), F. Gagey (CFO)
Website: http://www.klm.com
History
A 1919 advertisement
The “Worldwide Reliability” logo with Northwest Airlines, 1993-2002KLM 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.[3] 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 Curaçao 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. Each crew flying the trans-polar route over the Arctic was equipped with a winter survival kit, including a 7.62 mm selective-fire AR-10 carbine for use against polar bears in the event the plane was forced down onto the polar ice.
KLM Boeing 737-800In 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.
KLM ConvairIn 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.
Corporate organization
KLM Cityhopper Fokker 100KLM is listed on the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, New York and Paris.
Subsidiaries:
KLM Cityhopper (formerly: NLM Cityhopper)
KLM Cargo
KLM Flight Academy
Transavia Airlines, wholly owned low cost subsidiary of KLM
26% share in Kenya Airways
KLM Engineering & Maintenance
Martinair, wholly owned since 31-12-2008
Former subsidiaries:
KLM Helicopters
KLM uk was a KLM subsidiary until merged with KLM Cityhopper.
Buzz, the low-cost airline of KLM UK
KLM exel, a commuter airline.
KLM Asia – See KLM Asia
Merger
Air France-KLMOn 30 September 2003, Air France and KLM announced that they would in future be known as Air France-KLM. This entity was offered on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange on 5 May 2004. The takeover by Air France marked the end of the oldest independent airline in the world. The Royal adjective will remain.[citation needed] Its independent identity is guaranteed to 2008, but its operations may be merged with those of the French company. In the meantime, it does not appear that KLM’s longstanding joint venture with Northwest Airlines will be affected. Both KLM and Northwest joined the SkyTeam alliance in September 2004.
Presidents – CEOs
Albert Plesman (1919—1953)
Fons Aler (1953—1961)
Ernst van der Beugel (1961—1963)
Horatius Albarda (1963—1965)
Gerrit van der Wal (1965— 1973)
Sergio Orlandini (1973—1987)
Jan de Soet (1987—1991)
Pieter Bouw (1991—1997)
L. M. van Wijk (1997—2007)
Peter Hartman (2007—present)
KLM Delft Blue houses
Selection of KLM Delft Blue HousesSince 1952, KLM has presented its long-haul first-class passengers with small Delftware, blue-and-white porcelain reproductions of old Dutch canal houses.[5] In 1993, amidst the change-over from three to two cabins on its long-haul service, these canal houses (in Dutch, “huisjes”) were made available to its “WorldBusiness Class” passengers.
Initially, these houses, ranging in size from 5 to 11 cm. (about 2 to 4 inches) were filled with Rynbende jenever (a Dutch liquor and precursor to gin made from juniper berries); once Rynbende (Simon Rynbende & Sons) was acquired by Henkes, the houses were filled with Henkes jenever, and when that company was acquired by Bols, they became filled with Bols jenever.
The impetus for these houses was a rule aimed at curtailing a previously-widespread practice of offering significant incentives to passengers by limiting the value of gifts given by airlines to 75 US cents; however, no limit was placed on the provisions of duty-free liquor, so KLM was able to provide this more-valuable gift, camouflaged as liquor.[7] Prior to giving out these Delft-blue liquor-filled houses, KLM gave Delft-blue tiles as gifts, but these tiles broke the 75 cent limits.
A KLM crew in Suriname, who flew Guinness record-holder Maurizio Giuliano just after he broke the record to become the youngest person to visit all sovereign nations of the world[8]There are 88 different houses as of 2008, with an additional house added every year on the 7th of October; this being the anniversary of KLM’s founding (KLM, the world’s oldest commercial airline, being 88 years old in 2008), each numbered and representing the number of years KLM has been in operation. Each year, a new house receives the next sequential number. All houses are reproductions of historic houses in the Netherlands or its overseas dependencies, although the specific location of every archetype of some of the first ten huisjes was not recorded.
In addition to the 88 standard houses, sealed and filled with jenever (with numerous variations on the wording on the bottom or back of the houses in different manufacturing batches and with different jenever manufacturer names), there are variants that are not filled with gin, which are distributed to passengers on certain long-haul flights to Islamic countries who forbid import or export of liquor. In 2006 when, in response to terrorist activities, liquids were banned or restricted on various flights, KLM’s trans-Atlantic flights to the United States briefly also offered the same liquor-free huisjes. Until the early 1980s, the houses distributed on those routes were packaged as “ashtrays” with an open chimney and a semi-circular hole cut into the rear of the house, ostensibly for a cigarette.
Additional, larger, special Delftware have periodically been offered to VIPs and honeymoon couples[citation needed]; for most of the 1980s and 1990s, this was a model of the Royal Palace; since 2003, this was the “Waag.”[citation needed] These are particularly prized by collectors and at auctions they are often valued at about $1000.[citation needed]
Destinations and routes
KLM is the only carrier on 61 of the routes it operates, representing 45% of its ASKs from the airport. On around 14% of flights (10 routes) it faces competition from two other airlines. Seven of these routes are within Europe (Copenhagen, London Heathrow, Milan Malpensa, Oslo, Prague, Stockholm Arlanda and Vienna) the other three being Curaçao, Toronto and Tripoli. The only route on which KLM faces three competitors is Barcelona where clickair, Transavia.com and Vueling all provide competition.
Cabin
Boeing 777-200ER World Business Class
Boeing 777-200ER Economy Class
Boeing 777-300ER Economy ClassKLM offers Business Class and Economy class on its aircraft. On shorthaul aircraft, Flexible Business Class is called Europe Select, while on longhaul aircraft Business Class is called World Business Class.
World Business Class
World Business Class offers a 60 inch pitch on all longhaul aircraft. All aircraft offer a 170 degree angled lie-flat seat with a 10.4″ TV monitor with AVOD (Audio Video on Demand), email/text messaging, a privacy canopy, a massage function, and laptop power ports. KLM’s newest addition to the fleet, the Boeing 777-300ER features the same Business Class seat as merger partner Air France.
All WBC seats offer personal reading lamps, leg/foot rests, and personal telephones (At the back of the controller)
Pre-departure facilities include a fully flexible reservation, check-in desks, lounge access, priority boarding, and 150% Flying Blue miles. Onboard, passengers are given a three course meal with menus, pre-departure beverages, and snacks, which are available throughout the flight.
Europe Select
Europe Select, KLM’s premium product on shorter sectors, is offered on flights operated by Boeing 737 equipment. It offers a 33 inch pitch, a meal service on board (hot or cold meals depend on the length of the flight), priority boarding, extra baggage allowance, double Flying Blue miles, and fully flexible booking.
Boeing 737-800 landing
Economy Class
Economy Class offers a 31″ pitch on all long haul aircraft except the Airbus A330-200, which offers a 32″ pitch. Every wide-bodied aircraft offers personal TVs with AVOD and personal telephones (on the back of the controller), and an email/text messaging function. On short haul European flights on KLM and KLM Cityhopper, aircraft have no in flight entertainment, and contain a seat pitch of around 30 or 31″. Passengers flying Economy Class long-haul routes outside of Europe receive a hot meal service (often more than one depending on the flight duration), with real metal cutlery. Passengers flying within Europe in KLM Economy Class receive a snack to suit the time of day. Freshly prepared sandwiches made the day of flight served on most morning flights. Drinks (including alcohol) are free on KLM for all passengers, with the exception of champagne.[13] KLM will also start the installation of IFE in the Economy section of all B747s, this is due to start in mid 2009.
KLM’s 777-300ER economy seats are ten-abreast seats, unlike its 777-200ERs and most 777 aircraft operating around the world where it is nine-abreast. It is one of the few carriers to operate 777s with ten-abreast seating, along with Air France, Emirates Airline, China Southern Airlines and the Japanese domestic services by the two Japanese airlines (All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines)

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