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 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 were later deployed on this very first route. [3] : 1014 Intercontinental flights were started with Fokker F.VII equipment in November 1924, 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 14,000-kilometre-long (7,600 nmi) 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, when it was taken over from KNILM and added as an intermediate stop for the Amsterdam–Batavia line. [7] By April 1934, 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, 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. [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]
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