‘Oman key market for KLM’
After suspending its Muscat operation for more than five years, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines resumed services this winter. Bram Graber, Senior Vice President & Area Manager Benelux, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines speaks to OER about the resumption of air services to Muscat and other facilities offered to travellers in Oman

KLM has again started operating flights from Muscat to Amsterdam effective December 3. How many weekly roundtrips are you operating now?
We are operating five weekly roundtrips to the Omani capital, with Airbus A330-200, offering 30 business class seats and 221 economy class seats in each flight. Flight KL459 departs from Amsterdam on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday mornings and flies to Muscat via Kuwait. The return flight, KL460 returns to Amsterdam via Kuwait the following morning. This schedule ensures good connections with European and North Atlantic services through Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

What had made you to suspend service between Amsterdam and Muscat?
Owing to market circumstances in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, we were compelled to suspend service between Amsterdam and Muscat in early 2002. As the economy is now booming in Oman, we decided to resume operations, as we felt this was the right time to re-launch our services to this destination.

How important is the Oman market?
More recently, Muscat has developed into a key market in the Gulf region, both in terms of business and leisure travel. In fact, Oman is the largest market in the region not yet served by the combined KLM and Air France network. Muscat is KLM’s eighth destination in the Gulf region and the 60th intercontinental destination served via our own operation. Muscat is also the 10th destination in the Gulf region served by the combined Air France-KLM network via the Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle airports.

What facilities is KLM offering to its fliers?
The modern A330 features cutting edge facilities in in-flight comfort and convenience, with audio and video on demand (AVOD), in-seat video screens and satellite telephones, SMS and email service, sophisticated lighting and a spacious interior. The interactive personal audio and video on demand system on every seat offers a wide variety of new films, games, popular series, documentaries, music, language lessons, audio books, flight information and business programme. We have got a friendly and professional cabin crew. The latest generation aircraft also generates less noise and consume less fuel, thus causing no damage to the environment.

Can you tell us something about your flight renewal programme?
As part of our fleet renewal programme, two Boeing 777-300ERs, two Airbus A330-200s, and three Boeing 737-700s have been ordered for induction in 2010 and 2011. This is partly intended to replace the older ones with new aircraft and partly to accommodate growth. This will also contribute towards our policy on CO2 emission. Additionally, investments in fleet renewal contribute towards offering customers a better product, cutting back on unit costs, and raising efficiency in terms of network operations. In order to guarantee optimal flexibility, the orders include supplementary options on more aircraft of these three types. The new orders will bring the total number of Boeing 777-300ERs to six, the number of A330-200s to 12, and the number of Boeing 737-700s to 13.

Overall, how has KLM been performing?
Air France-KLM’s first half-year results for 2007-08 were excellent, with operating income going up by 27.6 per cent to 725 million euros. The net income was up by 97 per cent to 736 million euros. The revenues were up by 4.2 per cent to 12.43 billion euros. Operating income was up by 16.4 per cent to 1.14 billion euros. KLM’s income for 2006-07 was 1.2 billion euros. We fly to 240 destinations carrying 73.5 million passengers. We have 1,03,000 personnel working in KLM. Our cargo aircraft carry 1.4 million tonnes of cargo and we expect a further increase in 2008.

Jayashankar Menon

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