LONDON – According to RadarBox.com, Dutch carrier KLM has increased the number of flights by 77% last week compared to the same period last year.
Despite the airline dealing with chaos at Schiphol Airport, the airline has done extremely well to increase the number of flights it is operating each week.
Without further ado, let’s get into the numbers…
The Numbers…
Last week, June 4-11, the airline operated 638 flights, which is an increase of 77.22% compared to the same period in 2021, where only 360 flights were operated.
2021’s numbers were +170.68% better than in 2020, but this comes as no surprise due to the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the globe at an uncontrollable rate at that time.
For the week previous, being May 28-June 4, the airline operated 620 flights, which is up 71.75% compared to the same period in 2021.
So, what we are seeing here is consistent increases by around 70% compared to 2021, which is a positive step in the right direction.
Below is a list of May’s overall growth:
- April 30-May 7: 644 flights (+107.07% compared to the same period in 2021).
- May 7-14: 639 flights (+101.58% compared to the same period in 2021).
- May 14-21: 628 flights (+91.46% compared to the same period in 2021).
- May 21-28: 637 flights (+87.91% compared to the same period in 2021).
High Increases Forecasted…
Looking ahead to Summer 2022, RadarBox forecasts the numbers to be higher than the Summer 2021 season, which is promising news and unsurprising given the uptick in pent-up demand for travel.
With May averaging around 600-640 flights per week, this would beat 2021 numbers in August for example. August 6-13 last year saw KLM handle 570 flights per week on average.
This would definitely offer the suggestion that recovery will no doubt take place in this period for KLM, and that will set the airline up nicely for the Winter 2022/23 program as well.
That being said, there is still work yet to be done in order to reach the numbers achieved in 2019, which was the pre-pandemic era.
For example, on June 4-11, 2019, the airline operated 747 flights in one week. But with KLM being around 100 flights off, this is a figure that could easily be achieved if they play their cards right in the Summer 2022 schedule.
Overall…
What remains clear is that despite all the chaos, KLM is still doing well to make sure flights are getting into the skies and that the recent figures suggest they are not far off from recovery.
For KLM, what matters next is having as successful a Summer season as possible, in order to get more flights up in the air, more revenue flowing, and hope for profitability moving forward.
But for now, the path does seem to be steering positively for KLM. All they have to do now is maintain this growth, keep it going, and the results will follow accordingly.
