This is true in airline businesses – and in any business. Sometimes the winds are in your back, and sometimes all the opposite winds are. It is the last weather style as she finds the CEO of KLM Margen Rintel itself these days. Like many companies, KLM was suffering from strong macroeconomic factors to operate it this year, but instead the company faces an unconfirmed global environment, dark expectations for global travel, and the additional challenge of tense relations sometimes with the organizers.

It is something feat to generate a small nation in the Netherlands like a huge airline. Its population is only 18 million, and there is no need for local air travel, the Netherlands was not, of course, the home of one of the busiest airports in the world. But KLM played a role in making the Schipol a global position for people traveling elsewhere in Europe, and the fourth largest in Europe after London Heathrow, Istanbul and Paris Charles de Gaold. In 1919, KLM achieved revenues of 12.7 billion euros last year, and fled 34 million passengers. It is now part of Air France-KLM, which last year ranked 7 in the world among the largest airlines. (KLM generates about 40 % of the company’s total revenue.)

For the Dutch government, this growth has proven to be a very good thing. Last year, under pressure from the populated local population in Amsterdam to reduce the noise caused by air traffic inside and outside the Chipol, the government reduced the total allowances permitted in the axis by 4 % in 2025 to 478000 ((this restores to 2023 levels))

With the typical Dutchman, KLM described the step as “incomprehensible”, on the pretext that this step was unnecessary due to its increasing use of the quieter planes and warned the government not to hurt the country’s comprehensive economic development and its location as a commercial center. KLM also criticized the Dutch government, which raised the Schipol Airport fees by 41 %, as Rintel said it made the Schipol airport much more expensive than most others.

“If you install all these types of local measures, you will kill the work, because people will go to another place,” she says luck In an interview at the KLM headquarters in Amstelveen, directly outside Amsterdam. “As soon as it is over, it is over,” she said. In another place where it includes centers such as Frankfurt, which is cut in the effect of the SCIPOL in terms of passenger size, and Brussels, which only contain a small part of the long Schipol destinations.

Of course, RINTEL is interested in remaining Schipol at Raed Airport, where the airport and the fate of the airline are completely intertwined. KLM, which suffers from the first letters of the “Royal Airlines” in the Dutch language, is struggling to improve its profit, and in October the airline announced a plan to obtain 450 million euros annually from the cost structure. She recently cut hundreds of jobs.

To calm the government, and “Future Resistance” KLM, KLM’s efforts to update itself, including investing 7 billion euros in updating its fleet with many new aircraft that cause less noise, which will reduce carbon emissions. You also see a future in electrical aircraft to help European airlines hit their allocated green targets.

What you don’t want to see is that KLM is missing in the air travel boom, which says it will be long -term beyond the current turmoil. I noticed Delta Airlines A warning in March that weakening consumer confidence can harm business. But she sees appetite for air travel as not saturated. It also considers travel an innate need for people in her small country, which has a long tradition in Globetrotting, and dates back to the sixteenth century when the Dutch East Index Company was established.

“We still see people want to fly. Full flights, high loading factors, and there are still strong revenues,” she says. RINTEL indicates an example of a million Indian citizens every months of passports and expansion at airports such as London Heathrow and Copenhagen.

KLM strategy to attract excellent passengers

Like Delta, a partner airline, KLM works to “excellence” to display, or try to generate more revenues with confusing privileges to attract the best heel traveler. Delta trained her customers to pay the price of first -class seats, instead of giving up them as privileges as it did for years, paying the top of the dollar to reach the hall, and creating a reward for the airline. [Read Fortune‘s current cover story on Delta here.]

For KLM, this means touches like an upscale lounge in Schipol with features such as massage, sleep cabins and quiet work areas. On the plane, this takes the shape of the business degree seats that have light doors to create a special cabin. (RINTEL notes that the CEO of Delta Ed Bastian recently wrote that he says he was recently transferred to KLM for the first time in years, and he admired her excellent service.)

Despite friction with the government due to the number of flights permitted in Schipol, KLM has added a set of roads this year including San Diego and Hyderabad in India and more flights on current roads such as Las Vegas and Edmonton, Canada.

Another growth tool for Air France-KLM, taking into account the potential limits of growth at home, is uniform because it looks forward to keeping pace with competitors such as British Airways, the UAE and the new emerging self like Saudi Arabia. Air France-KLM obtained a 19.9 % stake in Scandinavian Airlines last year, and in March, Air France-KLM made a offer of 300 million euros to a majority stake in Spanish Air Air Air Air. “You have no choice but to look around the world, right? The competition comes to you otherwise,” she says.

But the cornerstone of KLM’s growth will remain installed in the importance of Schipol. Before becoming the CEO in 2022, she had led the Dutch national railway system, and early in her career, she worked in Schipol until 1999 in operational roles, where she developed an in -depth knowledge of how the airport works. Then she joined KLM for 15 years in her first period in the airline. It was specifically this mixture of backgrounds that were eventually set to operate the KLM, an experience that would make it easy to understand how to interact with the Dutch government and other stakeholders.

“If you know the two companies from inside, this always helps you to understand work relationships, understand pain points, understand the need to work together, and understand the basic operations,” she says.

She says this is the key to helping KLM to remain a strong airline and accomplish its role in linking the Netherlands to the rest of the world, all during the processing of environmental concerns.

“We need to be proud of the Netherlands, who are we and what we have done in the past and preserving it for the future.”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/marjanrintel2.jpg?resize=1200,600
2025-04-03 09:00:00