KLM to increase flights to southern Europe holiday hot spots in July

KLM said Tuesday it will increase flights to vacation spots in southern Europe and hopes to add a handful of long-haul destinations in July. The airline’s proposed July flight schedules represent 25-30% of what would be normal for the time of year, KLM said in a statement. “Our clients would like to travel again, so we’re expanding our network carefully and slowly,” CEO Pieter Elbers said. “We are doing that as carefully as we can with hygienic measures on board and on the ground.” KLM, which is still negotiating a E2-4b bailout package from the Dutch government after France agreed a E7b loan package for Air France-KLM and Air France in April, has been slowly resuming flights after cutting back 90% of its flight service in March after the outbreak of the coronavirus. It said it would increase flights in July between Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and Alicante, Bilbao, Bologna, Ibiza, Istanbul, Nice, Porto, Catania and Split, among other destinations. It also said it will consider resuming some long-haul flights including to Jakarta and Denpasar in Indonesia, as well as to North American cities Washington DC, San Francisco, Vancouver and Calgary, depending on easing of travel restrictions. The airline said it plans to increase the total number of flights it flies from Schiphol to 3,000 in July.<br/>