KLM, the Dutch carrier, is planning to add flights to Mumbai from the upcoming schedule in the winters. For the past few years, the connectivity between India and the Netherlands has increased manifold, from one single flight between Delhi and Amsterdam on KLM, after Delta dropped the flight between Mumbai and Amsterdam.
Now, we have connectivity from Mumbai and Delhi to Amsterdam, which will be followed by a third flight between Bangalore and Amsterdam very shortly on Jet Airways. Air France, the other airline of the AF/KLM group, already has presence in multiple centers in India. And now, KLM is introducing a 3 times weekly frequency between Mumbai and Amsterdam.
KLM will be operating a 294-seater Boeing 787-9 on the route, which is expected to be opened on October 29, 2017. Here is the expected schedule:
Amsterdam (AMS) – Mumbai (BOM) departs Amsterdam at 1 pm and arrives into Mumbai at 1:55 am
Mumbai (BOM) – Amsterdam (AMS) departs Mumbai at 4 am and arrives into Amsterdam at 8:45 am.
Of course, this is great news for those who look at KLM/AF/Delta/Virgin Atlantic as a option to cross over to the USA. I’m just waiting for the day that Jet Airways would make a joint venture with these carriers, and perhaps move on to join SkyTeam.
On the other hand, it still looks like KLM is not fully convinced about the route, because they only chose to operate 3x a week into Mumbai. Hoping this would be successful enough for them to make it a daily service.
What do you make out of this move from KLM and where do you see its partnership with Jet Airways going?
I think this flight is designed for better connections from and to KLM’s own network, particularly small cities in the UK regions and Nordic countries as well as certain Latin American destinations. But it is perhaps also premised on certain corporate customers’ preference for KLM over Jet. The timings, particularly the return to AMS, are not too great.
Ah…this evoked fond memories of taking this flight back in 2000 as a teenager, I did not know it would discontinue soon after !
At that time, KLM & Northwest had a partnership. The BOM-AMS flight used to be operated by NW thrice weekly, on a DC-10 if I remember correctly.
This was my first international flight, and I remember the rickety and large aircraft, with 2-5-2 config back in coach, where I was seated bang in the center of the 5 seats ! Glamorous indeed. 😀
Besides during the mid-2000s, the AMS-DEL route operated by KLM was on an MD-11, when it got downgraded from a 747. Two routes to India from AMS, were on the last of the two 3-engined jets. I had taken both.