KLM Founded: World's Oldest Airline Takes Off

Eight Dutch businessmen and a former military pilot pooled their resources on October 7, 1919, to found an airline that would still be operating under its original name more than a century later. Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij — Royal Dutch Airlines, universally known as KLM — became the world's oldest airline still operating under its founding name, outlasting thousands of competitors that rose and vanished across the aviation industry's turbulent first century. The airline was the brainchild of Albert Plesman, a 29-year-old former military aviator and the driving force behind a successful Amsterdam aviation exhibition earlier that year. Queen Wilhelmina granted the "Royal" designation, lending prestige to an enterprise that had no aircraft, no routes, and no passengers. KLM's first flight, on May 17, 1920, carried two British journalists and a bundle of newspapers from London to Amsterdam in a leased De Havilland DH-16. Plesman's ambition outpaced his resources. KLM's early years were marked by the same financial fragility that killed most interwar airlines. Government subsidies kept the company solvent while Plesman expanded routes across Europe and, ambitiously, to the Dutch East Indies. The Amsterdam-to-Batavia (Jakarta) route, inaugurated in 1929, covered over 9,000 miles and required multiple stops, taking roughly twelve days. The route demonstrated that long-haul commercial aviation was feasible, if uncomfortable. The airline survived World War II — barely. German occupation grounded all flights in the Netherlands, and KLM operated a skeleton service from the Dutch West Indies using a single Douglas DC-3. After liberation, Plesman rebuilt aggressively. KLM was the first European airline to introduce the Douglas DC-8 jet on transatlantic routes in 1960 and became an early adopter of the Boeing 747 in 1971. Financial pressures eventually forced consolidation. KLM merged with Air France in 2004 to form the Air France-KLM Group, one of the world's largest airline holding companies. The Dutch carrier retained its name, branding, and operational identity within the group. From a borrowed biplane to a fleet of widebody jets, KLM's survival through two world wars, depressions, oil crises, and industry deregulation makes it a case study in institutional resilience.