KLM can fly to the U.S. only from its home country, the NL., but would prefer to operate from Paris or London as well. With the upcoming merger with Air France, the market is forcing the issue.

Memo to the COO: Update Your Resume

According to a new study, chief operating officers can be likened to your appendix. Not only are they unnecessary, but they can also turn into expensive problems. The study, which will appear later this year in Strategic Management Journal, concludes that companies with…

The only agreement of equal access airline negotiations, concluded so far, though, is with the tiny Netherlands, a pact that followed Northwest’s deal with KLM.

The British are coming! The British are coming! And this time, they’re not coming by land or sea, but by air! That cry of alarm can be heard in Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta these days, as leaders of the top U.S. airlines wail about a threat to their hard-won global…

KLM, which up to now have operated predominantly U.S.-made fleets, announced important buys of planes built by Airbus, a consortium backed by four European governments.

Some big orders give the European wide-body a boost

American commercial planemakers have long dominated the world skies, but their near monopoly is under assault. Last week The Netherlands’ KLM and West Germany’s Lufthansa, which up to now have operated predominantly U.S.-made fleets, both announced important buys of wide-bodied, twin-engined…

Two 231-ft.-long Boeing 747 jumbo jets collided on the ground. Taking off down a runway visible for less than a sixth of its length, KLM 4805 smashed into Pan American 1736.

The sweet scent of flowers reaching their boats inspired ancient Romans and Greeks to call them “the Fortunate Islands.” The refreshingly mild and breezy climate was praised by more modern travelers as “perpetual spring.” But early natives of the Canary Islands,*70 miles off the northwest coast of Africa, knew…

With an abruptness that stunned the aviation industry, KLM’s president Van der Beugel resigned his job. KLM lost $21 million in 1961 and another $14 million in 1962’s first nine months.

Eighteen months ago, when he moved in as president of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, diminutive (5 ft. 3 in.) Ernst Hans van der Beugel, 44, looked like a bright hope. A brilliant ex-civil servant who had held the top career post in the Dutch Foreign Office, he appeared to have…

Latest victim of the jet squeeze: The Netherlands’ KLM, one of Europe’s few privately managed airlines, showed a loss of $21 million, the biggest in its 42-year history.

In Europe as in the U.S., the jet age is a convenience to passengers and a financial headache to the airlines. Between the high costs of the switchover to jets and the bitter competition for passengers to fill the bigger jets. West Germany’s Lufthansa last year lost about $25 million,…

U.S. airlines suffer from competition. In the case of KLM, it is not merely a business but a national symbol, compensating in part for the vanishing Dutch navy and the lost East Indies.

OVERSEAS AIR ROUTES

FOR the U.S. international airlines, the biggest problem of 1957 has spawned the bitterest argument. The problem: increasing competition from foreign carriers, largely because the U.S. is letting more and more foreign lines get into choice U.S. markets. Last week, as Pan American World Airways inaugurated a…

The Dutch/KLM have been granted two new U.S. air routes by the U.S. State Dept. Both the Civil Aeronautics Board and U.S. airlines have opposed it.

For eleven years the Dutch have been trying mightily to get new U.S. air routes to add to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines’ profitable runs from Amsterdam to New York and Curasao to Miami. They have been opposed both by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which feels that the U.S. is already…

Holland’s K.L.M. Lines, restored to prewar strength, is already giving U.S. lines plenty of competition.

On the world’s airways, one fact was plain: the Air Age needed a lot of supercharging from state subsidies to maintain flying speed. Because of subsidies, free-enterprising American-flag lines, once way ahead, could now see a handful of foreign lines, state-supported in varying degrees, creeping up on their tails. On…