’Small flows through hubs’ will lead recovery, says KLM chief

The recovery of international air connectivity will favour KLM’s hub operations above point-to-point services, according to the Dutch flag carrier’s CE Pieter Elbers. While operators elsewhere have been talking up point-to-point services as the quickest to come back, Elbers believes KLM’s focus on sixth-freedom operations that tap its extensive regional network will put it in a stronger position. “A lot of these smaller, point-to-point [services], or smaller airports connecting to the larger ones… these are the last ones to recover,” Elbers said Thursday. “The recovery will be led by a lot of small flows, which will be flown throughout the hubs.” He gave the example of someone “travelling from Billund in Denmark to Little Rock in Arkansas”, and said “there’s not going to be a direct flight – not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, not in the next 10 years... We connect all these small and mid-size European cities, channel them through Amsterdam and connect it to places in the US.” New point-to-point services have accompanied “the economic boom in the last few years”, Elbers observed, “but clearly with demand dropping and especially the business segment being away for a longer time, the hub system and our regional network feeding that system will gain in strength again”. Elbers highlighted the advantage conferred by KLM being “the largest operator of Embraer aircraft on the European continent”, giving it a substantial regional network to feed its Amsterdam Schiphol hub.<br/>