It is true within the airline enterprise—and in any enterprise. Generally the wind is at your again, generally it is all headwinds. And it is the latter climate sample the place KLM CEO Marjan Rintel finds herself as of late. Like many firms, KLM had been banking on robust macroeconomic components to energy it by this yr, however as an alternative the corporate faces an unsure world setting, a darkening outlook for world journey, and the added problem of generally tense relations with regulators.
It is one thing of a feat that the tiny nation of the Netherlands birthed such an enormous airline. With a inhabitants of solely 18 million individuals, and nearly no want for home air journey, the Netherlands wasn’t naturally the house of one of many busiest airports on this planet. However KLM has performed a task in making Schipol a worldwide hub for individuals touring elsewhere Europe, and the fourth largest in Europe after London Heathrow, Istanbul and Paris Charles-de-Gaulle. Shaped in 1919, KLM had revenues of 12.7 billion euros final yr, and flew 34 million passengers. It’s now a part of Air France-KLM, which final yr ranked No. 7 globally amongst largest airways. (KLM generates about 40% of complete firm income.)
For the Dutch authorities, that development has proved to be an excessive amount of of factor. Final yr, beneath stress from locals in densely populated Amsterdam to scale back noise attributable to air site visitors out and in of Schipol, the federal government lowered the full of flights allowed on the hub by 4% in 2025 to 478,000. (That brings again all the way down to 2023 ranges.)
With typical Dutch directness, KLM referred to as the transfer “incomprehensible,” arguing on the time that the transfer was pointless given its rising use of quieter planes and warned the federal government it may very well be hurting the nation’s general financial growth and place as a enterprise hub. KLM has additionally slammed the Dutch authorities elevating Schipol’s airport charges by 41%, with Rintel saying it made Schipol a way more costly airport from which to function than most others.
“If you install all these kinds of local measures, it will kill the business, because people will go somewhere else,” she tells Fortune in an interview at KLM’s headquarters in Amstelveen, proper exterior Amsterdam. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she stated. That some other place contains hubs like Frankfurt, which is nipping at Schipol’s heels by way of passenger quantity, and Brussels, which has solely a fraction of Schipol’s lengthy haul locations.
In fact, Rintel has a vested inquisitive about Schipol remaining a number one airport, with the airport and the airline’s fates fully intertwined. KLM, whose initials stand for “Royal Airline Company” in Dutch, is struggling to enhance its profitability, and in October the airline introduced a plan to take out 450 million euros a yr from its price construction. It not too long ago slashed lots of of jobs.
To mollify the federal government, and to “future-proof” KLM, Rintel touts KLM’s efforts to modernize itself, together with investing 7 billion euros in refreshing its fleet with many new airplanes that make much less noise, and which can minimize carbon emissions. She additionally sees a future in electrical planes to assist European airways hits their mandated inexperienced targets.
What she would not wish to see is KLM lacking out on the air journey increase she says will likely be lengthy lasting past the present turbulence. She took word of Delta Air Traces warning in March that weakening shopper confidence might harm enterprise. However she sees the urge for food for air journey as insatiable. She additionally considers journey an innate want for the individuals of her small nation, one which has a protracted custom of globetrotting, going again to the 1600’s when the Dutch East Indies firm was based.
“We still see people want to fly. The flights are full, high load factors, and there are still solid revenues,” she says. Rintel factors for instance to the 1 million Indian residents per months getting passports and to expansions at airports like London Heathrow and Copenhagen.
KLM’s technique to lure premium passengers
Like Delta, a companion airline, KLM has been engaged on the “premiumization” of its providing, or making an attempt to generate extra income with tantalizing perks to lure the higher heeled traveler. Delta has skilled its prospects to pay up for high class seats, quite than giving them away as perks because it did for years, and to pay high greenback for lounge entry, making a bonanza for the airline. [Read Fortune‘s current cover story on Delta here.]
For KLM which means touches like a high-end lounge at Schipol with options resembling massages, sleep cabins and quiet work areas. On board, that takes the type of enterprise class seats which have light-weight doorways to create a non-public compartment. (Rintel notes that Delta CEO Ed Bastian not too long ago texted her say he’d not too long ago flown on KLM for the primary time in years and was impressed with its premium service.)
Regardless of the friction with the federal government over the variety of flights allowed at Schipol, KLM has added a bunch of routes this yr together with San Diego, Hyderabad in India and extra flights on present routes resembling Las Vegas and Edmonton, Canada.
One other software for development for Air France-KLM, contemplating potential limits to development at residence, is consolidation because it seems to be to maintain up with rivals like British Airways, Emirates and new ones rising like Saudi. Air France-KLM took a 19.9% stake in Scandinavian Airways final yr, and in March, Air France-KLM made a 300 million euro supply for a majority stake within the Spanish airline Air Europa. “You have no choice but to look around the world, right? The competition comes for you otherwise,” she says.
However the cornerstone for KLM’s development will stay anchored in Schipol’s significance. Earlier than turning into CEO in 2022, she had led the nationwide Dutch NS rail system, and early in her profession, had labored at Schipol till 1999 in operational roles, the place she developed an in-depth information of how the airport works. She then joined KLM for 15 years in her first stint on the airline. It was exactly for that blend of backgrounds that she was in the end employed to run KLM, expertise that will make it simpler to know tips on how to work together with the Dutch authorities and different stakeholders.
“If you know both companies from inside, it always helps you to understand the working relationships, understand the pain points, understand the need of working together, understand the basic of operations,” she says.
And this, she says, is vital to serving to KLM stay a robust airline and fulfill its function in connecting the Netherlands to the remainder of the world, all whereas addressing environmental issues.
“We need to be proud in the Netherlands of who we are and what we did in the past and to preserve it for the future,” she says.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
