The coronavirus pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the aviation industry, forcing airlines from around the globe to ground their fleets and slash most of their destinations. However, the European continent is now beginning to recover from this virus and as mobility restrictions are abolished, airlines are beginning to slowly rebuild their networks.
Photo by Max Sutton | AeroNewsX
Among those is Dutch flag carrier KLM, which has already recovered part of its operation and plans to continue doing so for the rest of the summer. The airline plans to operate 5,000 European flights in July and 1,900 intercontinental ones. In August, the number of European flights would rise to 11,000 and the number of intercontinental ones to 2,100.
However, according to a press release issued by the carrier, those numbers are not even close to those from last year’s operation, when the airline operated approximately 22,000 flights in July and August. What will also fall behind from last year’s operation will be the KLM’s seat occupancy rates, which broke the airline’s record in 2019.
In the press release, the airline also mentioned that while the overall number of flights compared to last year would be low, the overall number of destinations served would remain relatively stable in order to offer variety to customers, and then increase frequencies in response to demand. Overall, the airline will be flying to 95% of the European destinations where it flew last year and to 80% of the intercontinental flights. It is worth noting that many of the intercontinental operations will consist of cargo-only flights and they will start carrying passengers as travel restrictions decrease.
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