After 16 years, KLM to return to Mumbai

KLM will deploy a 294-seat Boeing 787-9 aircraft on the route

KLM is resuming Amsterdam-Mumbai service after 16 years with a thrice weekly flight beginning from October 29. 

 

KLM (part of the Air France-KLM group) will deploy a 294-seat Boeing 787-9 aircraft on the route and the new service will enable Air France-KLM to catch up with Lufthansa that is now the biggest European airline flying to India.

 

In a statement KLM CEO Pieter Elbers said with the addition of the new flight there would be 31 direct flights between India and the Netherlands each week. “KLM’s network presence in India has grown enormously since we began our strategic cooperation with Jet Airways,” he said.

 

Earlier this month, Elbers visited Mumbai and met Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal to explore further avenues for cooperation.

 

Jet is also launching Bengaluru-Amsterdam and Chennai-Paris flights during the winter schedule and together the three airlines will operate 64 flights per week to the European hubs. Lufthansa flies 67 flights each week to India.

 

In 2016 passenger traffic between India and Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport grew 91.5 per cent to 477,296 and India leaped from 19th to 7th place in the list of long-haul markets served from Amsterdam. About 70-80 per cent of passengers from India travel onward to the US and Canada on KLM and it’s partner airline Delta.

 

Last March, Jet moved its European gateway from Brussels to Amsterdam. It flies daily from Mumbai and Delhi to Amsterdam and onward to Toronto. The Dutch airline had suspended Amsterdam Mumbai flights in 2001 and the route was then served by its partner airlines NorthWest and Delta till 2015.