KLM - SOUTHERN CROSS

K.L.M

There is always at one point in time in the story of a blog and a blogger that you must tackle a subject, in this case, a company with the utmost humility. This is the case with KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V, Royal Dutch Airlines), a "monstre sacré " the history of aviation which celebrates this its 95th anniversary.

The company established in 1919 is the oldest airline in the world operating under its original name. Founded by Albert Plesman , the company was instrumental in developing commercial aviation in the world.

The company and South America love story  go many decades back when the airline made its first transatlantic flight in December 1934 linking Amsterdam with Curacao in a Fokker F-XVIII Snip linking for the first  time the Netherlands with Dutch Antilles and Dutch Guiana (known today as the republic of Suriname)

The Netherlands emerged from WW2  victorious but all its infrastructure was destroyed and KLM had to rebuild its network. To this effect, Mr. Plesman travelled to the USA to acquire some war surplus aircraft ( he returned with a bunch of DC4, Lockheed Constellations and DC3s). By 1947  as evidenced by its timetable dated June 40, 1947, KLM operated twice weekly to South America as flight KL988 : Amsterdam-Lisbon-Dakar-Natal-Rio di Janeiro-Montevideo, the flight taking 23hr and 50m  to complete.

In 1954,  and according to its timetable  dated May 30 , the Southern Cross flights presented some particular s and interesting facts for the aviation fan that I am . You could join the heart of South America in this case Lima following this particular route 

KL 653 : AMS-GLA-YQX-YUL-HAV-CUR (night stop at CUR) and continuing as flight KL705 CUR-PTY-GYE-LIM, the return flight KL706  connected directly CUR with the outbound flight to Amsterdam ( only 2 hrs transit in CUR).The other  flights were routed as follow : AMS-LIS-DKR-REC-RIO-MVD-BUE  (KL 665- 1x w) and AMS-FRA-ZRH-LIS-DKR-REC-RIO-MVD-BUE-SCL  (KL661- 1 x w) , and AMS-LIS-SMA-POS-CCS-CUR  (KL657- 1 x w ).All flights were operated with Douglas DC6B in a dual class configuration First and Tourist  except for flight KL 657 operated by a super constellation.

Explanation of airport codes to be found at the bottom of the page

By 1957, Sao Paulo is already on the map and services on the southern route (RIO-SAO-BUE-MVD-SCL) were increased from 2 to 3 whereas LIM and GYE remained at 1 per week PBM  1 x week and CCS 3 x week.

The DC8 were introduced in March 1960 and they gradually replaced all piston operated aircraft of KLM. In 1962, all South American services were operated by the DC8 . The increased capacity of the DC8  (12F/ 120Y )allowed KLM to reduce the frequency of flights. Therefore flight KL 791 operated only once a week on the following routing  AMS-ZRH-LIS-DKR-RIO-MVD-BUE-SCL instead of a twice weekly service when operating the DC6B

In 1965, the intermediate stop in Dakar is dropped 

YOUR TIMETABLE  from 1969

KLM timetable cover 16/6-21/10/1969 from www.timetableimages.com/Bjorn Larsson collection

YOUR SCHEDULES

KLM operated the Southern Cross services with a mixed equipment of DC8-30/50 and DC8-63 which KLM starting receiving in 1968

YOUR MAP

KLM SOUTHERN CROSS 1969 MAP

YOUR CARRIAGE (s)

KLM Douglas DC-8-30 PH-DCG "Guglielmo Marconi"By Christian Volpati [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By clipperarctic (KLM DC-8  Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons -PH-DCW

Douglas DC-8-63,PH-DEK "David Livingstone" KLM Royal Dutch Airlines "Douglas DC-8-63, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines JP6543492" by Aldo Bidini - Gallery page http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6543492Photo http://images3.jetphotos.net/img/1/0/1/1/79401_1240150110.jpg. Licensed under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Douglas_DC-8-63,_KLM_Royal_Dutch_Airlines_JP6543492.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Douglas_DC-8-63,_KLM_Royal_Dutch_Airlines_JP6543492.jpg

or

PH-DED "Leifur Eriksson"McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63, KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines By Michel Gilliand [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The table below gives you the list of the abbreviations used in this post .

typo mistake Zurixh =Zurich

LINKS TO OTHER KLM POSTS
KLM SPRINGBOK SERVICES IN THE LATE 50s
KLM VICKERS VISCOUNT
 
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.