KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is part of the Air France–KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance.

History

KLM was set up by Albert Plesman on 7 October 1919 and started operations on 19 May 1920.^[1] The first route served was the Amsterdam to London, flown with DH.9As that carried just two passengers on a charter basis.^[2]: 13 Two Fokker F.IIs that were delivered in September 1920 (1920-09) were later deployed on this very first route.^[3]: 1014 Intercontinental flights were started with Fokker F.VII equipment in November 1924 (1924-11), serving the Dutch East Indies,^[4]: 36 although it was not until 1931 that regular services on this line were implemented.^[5] It normally took 11 or 12 days to complete the 9,000-mile (14,000 km) long flight between Amsterdam and Batavia, calling at Budapest, Athens, Cairo, Baghdad, Bushehr, Jask, Karachi, Jodhpur, Allahabad, Calcutta, Akyab, Rangoon, Bangkok, Medan and Palembang.^[5] In 1926, the Rotterdam–Amsterdam–Copenhagen run was extended to Malmö.^[6]: 416

Singapore was first served in May 1933 (1933-05), when it was taken over from KNILM and added as an intermediate stop for the Amsterdam–Batavia line.^[7] By April 1934 (1934-04), Berlin, Hamburg and Liverpool were already part of the European route network.^[8] In May that year, KLM became the first airline that linked Continental Europe with the North of England, when the Amsterdam–Hull route was inaugurated;^[9] the Amsterdam–Liverpool service was re-routed via Doncaster in mid-1936.^[10] By April 1939 (1939-04), the following twenty-one lines were operative: Amsterdam–Berlin, Amsterdam–Bremen–Hamburg, Amsterdam–Kristiansand–Oslo, Amsterdam–Copenhagen–Malmö, Amsterdam–Copenhagen–Norrköping–Stockholm, Amsterdam–Copenhagen–Stockholm, Amsterdam–Eindhoven, Amsterdam–Groningen–Leeuwarden–Amsterdam, Amsterdam–Leipzig–Budapest–Athens–Alexandria–Lydda–Baghdad–Basra–Jask–Karachi–Jodhpur–Allahabad–Calcutta–Rangoon–Bangkok–Penang–Medan–Singapore–Palembang–Batavia–Bandung that connected with KNILM services, Amsterdam–Manchester–Liverpool, Amsterdam–Twente, Amsterdam–Texel, Amsterdam–London, Amsterdam–Paris, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Basel–Zürich, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Cologne, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Frankfurt–Milan–Rome, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Haamstede–Vlissingen–Knokke/Zoute, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–London, Amsterdam–Rotterdam–Prague–Vienna–Budapest, and Paris–Copenhagen–Stockholm.^[11]

With an intermediate stop at Espinho, the Amsterdam–Lisbon route was opened in April 1940 (1940-04).^[12] Initially, these flights carried freight and mail, connected at Lisbon with Pan American Airways Clipper services to New York and had a subsidy from the Dutch Post Office.^[13]

List

KLM serves over 170 destinations across the world, as of July 2022^{[update][14][15]} and 163 destinations during the winter 2022 season.^[16] Following is a list of destinations the airline and its subsidiaries KLM Cargo and KLM Cityhopper fly to according to their scheduled services.