from KLM to DCA


Royal Dutch Airlines

West Indian Division

After KLM Royal Dutch Airlines had opened the Oost-Indië Route to Indonesia, they naturally cast a beady eye on the Dutch colonies in the West, with their Fokker aircraft the best in the world. A strong impetus was the enormous hidden subsidy the Nederlandsche Posterijen paid in the form of premium freight rates for mail. This lucrative tradition was continued from the days of steam and amounted to a yearly contribution of 1.5M Dutch 1930 guilders on the East-India route.

The 1934 flight of the Snip settled the record for the first mail flight across the Atlantic and delivered the first aircraft for their operations. A second one, Oehoe (renamed Oriol) arrived by ship, and was mainly used as a submarine fighter. Both aircraft were Fokker FXVIIIs, the last and most powerful from a line starting with the FVIIb-tm tri motor. KLM was ready to start their West-Indian operations. They had started investigating this market in 1920, when the only connection between the 6 islands of the Kolonie Curaçao consisted of a weekly trip of one government schooner. With the opening of the Panama Canal and Shell starting Isla oil refinery, several airlines had preceded them.


P.A.A. Sikorsky S-42

The 1919 SCADTA, later incorporated in Avianca of Colombia (which is, after that manner, the oldest still flying airline in the world) in 1926 unsuccessfully tried to open a route Barranquilla-Curaçao with flying boats.
In 1928 Pan American World Airways started mail flights from Miami to Paramaribo (capital of the Dutch colony Suriname) and, from 1930, on to Buenos Aires. They used seaplanes until 1941. The two routes in 1928 were Miami-Kingston/Jamaica-Barranquilla/Colombia, and Miami-Trinidad-Paramaribo. Barranquilla and Trinidad were connected via Maracaïbo/Venezuela-Curaçao-Puerto Cabello/Venezuela. P.A.A. used Sikorsky S-38 amphibians, one of which was flown in by Charles Lindberg as a goodwill ambassador. After a runway was completed these landed on Hato airport. When P.A.A. acquired more landing rights in Venezuela, they stopped flights on Curaçao.
An extinct French company opened a South-Atlantic crossing in 1928, to start Aeropostal in Venezuela. With the bankruptcy of the French mother company, the Venezuelan government took over and the company finally emerged as LAV Linea Aeropostal Venezolana.

What KLM really wanted with the flight of the Snip was to make Curaçao the hub of their American operations, and provide an American link between the Far East and Europe. Internationally, KLM was very aggressive. They also started Garuda Indonesian Airways, SLM Surinaamse Luchtvaart Maatschappij, and had a strong interest in PAL Philippine Airlines. Regular scheduled flights between Amsterdam and Curaçao did not begin until after W.W.II. KLM first started flights to Aruba island and Venezuela, in cooperation with KNSM Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Steamship Company). Both became agents for Curaçao Trading Company in several Caribbean harbors; trading and banking house Maduro would take care of ticket sales and ground services. The inaugural flight to Aruba was on 19 January, 1935, and they put up a monument to prove it. It's still there.


Hato Airport Monument

Lines were opened to Maracaïbo, 1936 and Caracas/Venezuela, 1937, Bonaire island and Barranquilla, 1938; Paramaribo/Suriname, Port of Spain/Trinidad, and Barcelona/Venezuela in 1939. Apart from the FXVIII Snip and Oehoe (later renamed Oriol), the FVIII Duif was in service from 1937 to 1939, when it was sold to Venezuela. In 1939 Douglas delivered two DC5 aircraft, which in 1941 were sold to the East India Division Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij. Curaçao-Aruba-Kingston/Jamaica followed in 1941. Curaçao-Havana/Cuba-Miami, 1942 (later Curaçao-Camaguey-Miami).The first Lockheed L-18s Super Electra joined the fleet with the L-18 Lodestar.


DC5 Wakago

	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944
Total routes (km)	4181	4147	4355	5004	7265	9510
Flight hours	3398	4058	4179	5996	7474	8026
Passengers	14578	17593	20513	25817	33152	33741
Passenger kms.	3,692,460	4,249,357	5,631,824	11,314,293	17,211,051	17,366,063
Freight & excess luggage, kgs.	117,356	158,554	198,101	247,335	329,392	352,245
Kgs. of mail	10,632	11,980	13,854	25,591	55,210	34,184

compare with ALM route map

kms.		flight routes 1946	from/to Curaçao
117		Aruba
1739		Port of Spain	Paramaribo
79		Bonaire
907		Aruba	St. Maarten
784		Ciudad Trujillo	Aruba
282		La Guaira
2093		Aruba	Port au Prince	Camaguey	Miami
2024		Aruba	Kingston		Miami
663		Aruba	Barranquilla
388		Aruba	Maracaïbo
408		La Guaira

Snip, Troepiaal and Parkiet


In 1947 KLM's West-Indisch Bedrijf offered these services from Curaçao:

1/day	Aruba	Kingston	Miami
2/week	Ciudad Trujillo	Port au Prince	Kingston	Havanna
2/day	Caracas
3/week	Port of Spain	Paramaribo
2/week	Port of Spain
2/week	Aruba	Barranquilla	San José
work days	Bonaire	Port au Prince
weekly	St. Maarten	St. Kitts
1/day	Aruba	Maracaïbo
3/day	Aruba

This phenomenal growth had much to do with Venzuelan oil, refined in Curaçao and Aruba. The WWII Allies were totally dependent on Curaçao's Isla for all aircraft fuel used in the United Kingdom. With the Esso Lago refinery in Aruba, business boomed and kept KLM alive and well. Company headquarters were transferred to Curaçao, with as only other operation the DC3 flights London-Lisboa.


Electra over Willemstad harbor
The US government was giving away Lockheed L14 Electras all over the place, mainly to combat German influence in South America. Ernest K. Gann has some rattling good stories to tell about delivery of these. The L14 was much less old-fashioned to our eyes than the Fokkers were. Comparing them, the Fokker is like an old-fashioned automobile, while the car industry only adapted the techniques used in the L14 after W.W.II. KLM used several L14s and L18s.


Fokker, Lockheed and crews

Aircraft		end 1946
Lockheed	L14	Super Electra	PJ-AIK	Kolibri
			PJ-AIM	Meeuw
			PJ-AIT	Troepiaal
Lockheed	L18	Lodestar	PJ-AKA
			PJ-AKB
Douglas	DC3		PJ-ALA	Ala Blanca
			PJ-ALB	Blauwduif
			PJ-ALC	Chuchubi
			PJ-ALD	Dekla
Douglas	C47E	military DC3	PJ-ALE
			PJ-ALG	(photography)
			PJ-ALH	(in conversion)
Douglas	C54A	military DC4	PJ-ALK	Kralendijk
			PJ-ALO	Oranjestad
			PJ-ALW	Willemstad
Fokker	FXVIII		PJ-AIS	Snip

After the war Pan American flew to Curaçao with Boeing Stratocruisers.
The KLM-WIB fleet consisted of Douglas DC4s, used between the Antilles and Caracas/Miami; other routes were flown by DC3s.


DC3 and DC4 by Ernest K. Gann; Convair 340 Metropolitan

In 1954 four Convair 340s were added, joined in 1957 by DC6s.
The Convairs then moved on to the shorter routes and the DC3s were phased out.


Chuchubi in Nepal?

The last one, Chuchubi, was sold to Royal Nepal Airlines in 1961.
The Snip was junked in the mondi (bush) by Hato Airport.

Douglas DC6

(But where's the bridge?)

KLM West-Indisch Bedrijf was taken over in 1964
by ALM Antilliaanse Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Antillean Airlines)

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