johan rebel

Just to take your minds off the Flying Blues . . . .

The other week I found a KLM winter timetable, valid November 1, 1967, through March 31, 1968. It makes interesting reading!

The airline had all of four aircraft types in its fleet : Lockheed Electra II, DC-9, DC-8 and DC-8-63 ("Super DC-8"). KL's fare structure was rather straightforward back then, the timetable lists all fares to all KL and partner destinations on a single page, with plenty of space to spare!

One way and return tickets were available in F (Royal Class) and Y to all destinations, and restricted Y fares to some. The latter were about 30% cheaper than full fare Y, and subject to a maximium stay of one month, and a minimum stay between 5 and 13 days. Discounted Y to the Dutch Antilles and Surinam was available to residents of the Netherlands only.

Some examples of prices (in Dutch guilders), routings, etc.

AMS-JFK. Twice daily, the familiar KL641 and 643. Aircraft : DC-8/DC-8-63. Return fare : 2,755.00 (F), 1,610.00 (Y).

AMS-CPH. Twice daily, KL171 and KL173, with the former continuing to MMA and STO. Electra II / DC-9. 504.00 (F), 365.00 (Y). Block time was 1h20m, 10 minutes less than nowadays! So much for a jet being faster than a turboprop!

AMS-LIM. Thursdays, KL775. DC-8. 4,925.00 (F), 3,164.00 (Y). Routing : AMS-ZHR-MAD-LIS-CCS-CUR-PAC-GYE-LIM. Yep, that's seven stops en route! Pax were served snacks/refreshments, dinner, more refreshments, breakfast, coffee/tea, refreshments yet again and finally lunch. KL773 on Mondays stopped at FRA, ZHR, LIS, POS, CCS, CUR and PAC. Phew!

AMS-JNB. Mondays, KL591 (same flight number is still used almost 40 years later). DC-8. Y only : 2,622.00. Routing : AMS-ZHR-KAN-NLO-JNB. Snack/refreshments, dinner, breakfast, coffee/tea. KL593 on Thursdays. 4,855.00 (F). AMS-ZHR-FCO-KAN-BZV-JNB. Snacks/refreshments, dinner, more refreshments, breakfast, lunch.

AMS-TYO. Thursdays. KL863. DC-8. 7,808.00 (F), 4,701.00 (Y). Routing : AMS-ZHR-ATH-BEY-KWI-KHI-DEL-BKK-MNL-TYO. Snacks/refreshments, dinner, more refreshments, breakfast, coffee/tea, lunch, dinner again, breakfast again. KL867 on Sundays took the polar route, stopping only in ANC. Pax had to settle for dinner, breakfast and lunch.

The timetable also features a page extolling the benefits of Royal Class. Full-color photographs show a fancy cheese board, designer ashtrays (yuck!), the purser carving meat on a trolley in the aisle, the purser serving drinks, etc.

The last pages detail domestic services and fares. KL had its own coach company (KLM Autobusmaatschappij N.V.). A ticket EIN-AMS cost 12.50. Pax in a hurry could fly instead, a one way ticket cost all of 4,50 more! The flight was operated by NLM with a F27.

johan

psollitt

That is spot on ! could you post some more of these , as they are very interesting , if not tell us where they were found . !


Ta

monahos

Would you remember when KLM started flying the polar route? I recall having to take the southern route to Asia for most of the 70's (on SR mostly).

An early F27 certainly? Some noisy beasts those were.

Threy

Would be the ultimate nightmare for an FD agent to book with all the married segments and could nowadays result in a funny amount of miles to burn for an award, if they had to book every segment seperately...

Great post, very interesting that they already had two nonstops to New Amsterdam in the late 60`s, was one flight continued to another US city ?

Talking about those flight numbers, the first LH flight to JFK also has the same flight number about 50 years later( LH 400/401 ) , however it was from HAM or DUS and not from FRA, IIRC

And also interesting that they obviously always flew to GYE ( Guayaquil ) and still do and not to Quito ( UIO )

WearyBizTrvlr

Absolutely fascinating stuff! They even had aeroplanes before I was born!

Since nominal prices are hugely misleading, I looked up the cumulative inflation since November 1967. To get express the data in current prices, you need to multiply by 4.18.

So the AMS-JFK return fare would be 11524 guilders in F and 6734 in Y. Converting to the new-fangled euro, it works out at 5229 and 3056 respectively. Not too bad for F, but pretty exorbitant for Y.

CPH is not as extreme: 956 euros for F and 693 for Y.
LIM would be 9348 euros in F, 6006 in Y.

TYO is almost unimaginably expensive in today's prices: 14,820 euros in F, 8,923 in Y. Again, the F fare is not that totally outrageous given the current walk-up fares on premium airlines, but the Y fare is very far from affordable. In fact incomes have risen faster than inflation, so the relative affordability would make the current-day equivalent fares even higher. Flying certainly wasn't for the masses.

johan rebel

Sure. Any specific routes, fares, times etc. you are interested in?

Johan

johan rebel

As early as November 1, 1958.

Yes, of course, you are right. Post corrected.

Johan

johan rebel

No, KL642 and KL644 returned to AMS, departing JFK 3h15m and 1h30m after arrival respectively.

KL621 AMS-JFK on Thursdays and Saturdays stopped at Prestwick en route, as did KL622 on the return.

KL683 AMS-YUL-IAD-MEX operated Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays.

KL685 flew the same route on Thurdays, in a Y-only configuration.

KL671 (Y only) on Wednesdays and KL673 (F & Y) on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays AMS-YUL,and KL867 to ANC on Wednesdays and Sundays completed KL's entire North America network.

All these flights were operated with DC-8 / DC-8-63 aircraft.

I know that KL wanted to fly to many other US destinations, but they battled for years to get landing rights. The Netherlands is a small country, and could not offer much in the way of reciprocal rights. Not many US carriers were interested in flying to EIN or MST!

johan

psollitt

Some more of the inter european ones would be interesting , thanks

Threy

Now it would be very interesting to learn if KLM had Seventh Freedom rights on YUL-IAD or IAD-MEX and Eighth Freedom rights on flights within the US ?? That is especially of importance for the huge run you described in your original post with the AMS-ZHR-MAD-LIS-CCS-CUR-PAC-GYE-LIM routing.Imagine not, then you start at Schiphol with 120-150 or so pax and drop off a few handfuls at any stop, then you end up flying GYE-LIM with a full crew, but only a half dozen pax...

Would like to know the economical figures of those flights, can imagine that they had those rights in SA, but really sure about NA and Canada...

Beside that the NL was certainly among the first European countries to privatise its airline ( at least partly and always keeping a Golden Share ) together with the UK, but NL was less restictive with traffic rights , especially to AMS, which was also a huge driving factor for the expansion and status quo of Schiphol and consequently Amsterdam as a tourist destination, KLM certainly always played its part...

Funny that you have mentiond EIN and MST, for the latter one I can remember flights were the number of pax onboard the Atr 42 was closed to being outmatched by the number of customs officers at the destination

johan rebel

They did pick up and drop off pax at most, if not all, the stops en route. It was the only way to make any money on such longhaul flights, demand was not sufficient to support point-to-point flights to most destinations, even with only one or two flights a week. My father did international market research for KL from 1964 to 1968, and was intimately involved with the route planning puzzle. Had he still been alive, he would have been able to provide detailed answers to questions like these.

johan

johan rebel

Here you go :

AMS-WAW . 721.00 Guilders (F) 574.00 (Y). (These flights had to make a detour via Denmark and the Baltic to avoid East German airspace) :

KL295 DC9 Tuesdays 9.15-11.10
KL299 Electra II Saturdays 13.05-15.30 (flight continued to Moscow 16.10-20.35)

AMS-MIL (Forlanini). 437.00 (F) 344.00(Y) :

KL341 Electra II Daily 9.05-11.00

AMS-LON . 265.00 (F) 194.00 (Y) :

5 flights on weekdays, four on weekends: 8.45, 13.00, 17.00, 18.00 and 20.00. KL119/127/135/137/141. Mixture of DC-9 and Electra II.

AMS-HAM . 230.00 (F) 166.00 (Y):

KL211 DC-9 Daily 9.00-9.55
KL213 DC-9 Daily 12.50-13.45
KL215 DC-9 Daily 17.05-18.40 (via Bremen)

AMS-NCE . 496.00 (F) 373.00 (Y):

KL351 DC-9 Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays 13.10-14.40
KL371 DC-9 Thursdays Sundays 13.10-14.40
KL365 DC-9 Saturdays 13.10-14.40

johan