KLM

In 1919 the young aviator Albert Plesman sponsored an aviation exhibition in Amsterdam. That September Queen Wilhelmina granted the not-yet-founded airline its "Royal" title, and on 7 October 1919 eight Dutch businessmen founded KLM, one of the first commercial airlines. Its first flight took place on 17 May 1920, and that year it carried 440 passengers.

By 1926 KLM flew to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremen, Copenhagen and Malmö, mostly with Fokker aircraft.

KLM's first experimental intercontinental flight left on 1 October 1924 for the Dutch East Indies, and in September 1929 regular scheduled services between Amsterdam and Batavia began; until 1939 this was the longest scheduled air route in the world. The Douglas DC-2 joined the route in 1934, the "Uiver" placed second in that year's MacRobertson race from England to Melbourne, and DC-3s replaced the DC-2s from 1936.

July 1935 was KLM's "black week": three international crashes in seven days which, with an earlier one, cost it around 15 per cent of its pilots that year.

On 21 May 1946 KLM became the first continental European airline to fly scheduled services across the Atlantic, from Amsterdam to New York with Douglas DC-4s. In July 1989 it bought a 20 per cent stake in Northwest Airlines, and in 2004 it merged with Air France under the Air France to KLM holding company, the two airlines keeping their separate brands.