KLM

Early years

In 1919, young aviator lieutenant Albert Plesman sponsored the ELTA aviation exhibition in Amsterdam. Attendance at the exhibition was over half a million, and after it closed, several Dutch commercial interests intended to establish a Dutch airline, which Plesman was nominated to head. In September 1919, Queen Wilhelmina awarded the yet-to-be-founded KLM its "Royal" ("Koninklijke") predicate. On 7 October 1919, eight Dutch businessmen, including Frits Fentener van Vlissingen, founded KLM as one of the first commercial airline companies. Plesman became its first administrator and director.

The first KLM flight took place on 17 May 1920. KNLM's first pilot, Jerry Shaw, flew from Croydon Airport, London, to Amsterdam. The flight was flown using a leased Aircraft Transport and Travel de Havilland DH-16, registration G-EALU, which was carrying two British journalists and some newspapers. In 1920, KLM carried 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight. In April 1921, after a winter hiatus, KLM resumed its services using Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.

KLM's first experimental intercontinental flight took off on 1 October 1924. The final destination was Batavia, Dutch East Indies on Java, now Jakarta, Indonesia, into what would become Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport. The flight used a Fokker F.VII with registration H-NACC and was piloted by Jan Thomassen à Thuessink van der Hoop. In 1927, Baltimore millionaire Van Lear Black, who had heard about the 1924 flight, chartered H-NADP to do the same flight, which departed 15 June and went successfully (16 days), and flew back to much rejoicing. This inspired KLM to make a second test flight, which left on 1 October, returning successfully with much experience gained. In September 1929, regular scheduled services between Amsterdam and Batavia commenced. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, this was the world's longest-distance scheduled service by airplane. By 1926, it was offering flights to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremen, Copenhagen, and Malmö, using primarily Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft.

In 1930, KLM carried 15,143 passengers. The Douglas DC-2 was introduced on the Batavia service in 1934. The first experimental transatlantic KLM flight was between Amsterdam and Curaçao in December 1934 using the Fokker F.XVIII "Snip".

In July 1935, KLM had three major international passenger flight crashes in one week. The "Kwikstaart" crashed in Amsterdam on 14 July, the "Maraboe" in Bushir on 17 July, and the “Gaai” in San Giacomo on 20 July. The week of 14 to 20 July 1935 came to be known as a "black week" for KLM. In these three crashes, KLM lost three airplanes as well as crew in two of them. Together with an earlier crash in April of the "Leeuwerik", KLM had lost around 15% of its pilots in 1935. As a result, there was a shortage of crew members and airplanes, and the Amsterdam—Milan flight service was taken over by Deutsche Lufthansa.

The first of the airline's Douglas DC-3 aircraft were delivered by ship, on the Holland America Line ocean liner Statendam on 11 September 1936; these replaced the DC-2s on the service via Batavia to Sydney. KLM was the first airline to serve Manchester's new Ringway airport, starting in June 1938. KLM was the only civilian airline to receive the Douglas DC-5; the airline used two of them in the West Indies and sold two to the East Indies government, and is thus the only airline to have operated all Douglas 'DC' models other than the DC-1.

Second World War

The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 restricted KLM's operations, with flights over France and Germany prohibited, and many of its aircraft painted in overall orange to limit the potential for confusion with military aircraft. European routes were limited to services to Scandinavia, Belgium and the UK, with flights to Lisbon (bypassing both British and French airspace) starting in April 1940.

When Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, several KLM aircraft—mostly DC-3s and a few DC-2s—were en route to or from the Far East, or were operating services in Europe. Five DC-3s and one DC-2 were taken to Britain. During the war, these aircraft and crew members flew scheduled passenger flights between Bristol and Lisbon under BOAC flight numbers and registration.

On 3 March 1942, Douglas DC-3 PH-ALP "Pelikaan", then registered as PK-AFV, was shot down over Western Australia by Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service Mitsubishi A6M Zeros during the attack on Broome while carrying a package of diamonds. The DC-3 crash landed at Carnot Bay, 80 kilometers from Broome. Pelikaan was subsequently strafed by the Zeros that had shot it down, killing three passengers and the flight engineer.