About KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

The KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the national airline of the Netherlands and is part of Air France-KLM. KLM's name in Dutch is Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, literally Royal Aviation Company, but is commonly know as Royal Dutch Airlines.

KLM was founded on October 7th 1919 in the Netherlands, making it the oldest airline in the world still operating under its origional name. The first KLM flight was on May 17th 1920 from London to Amsterdam. In 1920 KLM carried 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight.

By 1926 KLM was offering flights to Amsterdam, Rottermdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremem, Copenhagen and Malmo. KLM was the first airline to fly to Manchester Airport.

In 1946, KLM was the first contentinetal European airline to launch schedule services to New York. In 1950 KLM carried 356,069 passengers! By 1980 KL carred almost 10 Million Passengers!

In 1989 KLM acquired 20% of Northwest Airlines, and in 1990 carried 16 Million passengers!

In 2003, Air France and KLM announced that they would merge and be known as Air France-KLM. This takeover by Air France marked the end of KLM being the oldest independant airline in the world.

Today KLM operates domestic and worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 worldwide destinations!