By Roy Lie A Tjam.
The organizing committee of the Latin American Table made up by Sonia de Meijer (chair) and Mr. Jorge E. Colombo Taricco (vice-chair), invited friends and interested persons to a lecture by Mr. Pieter Groeneveld who is the vice–president Network of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
Pieter Groeneveld is also an alumnus of Erasmus University and holds a Master in Business Economics which he obtained in 1995.
For additional Kim Vermaat’s pictures, please open the following link:https://www.flickr.com/photos/121611753@N07/albums/72157678861444042
After a short period working in procurement for Royal Dutch Shell, he joined KLM in 1997. His first assignment was to coordinate the introduction of the 6 Wave Hub Systems in AMS. That led to a remarkable career path. He worked as a network planner for Eastern Europe and later for Asia Pacific.
Thereafter, he moved to the Cargo division in 2002 as the director of network planning, followed by commercial functions as director cargo for High Tech and Fashion Industries. Pieter returned in 2008 to KLM head offices as vice president for corporate strategy and has since 2010 been responsible for the global network development of KLM.
This lecture was hosted at Nieuwe of Littéraire Sociëteit De Witte on Monday 27 February 2017 under the theme: KLM Network Developments – on Latin America in Particular.
The first part of the lecture was so interactive that Mr. Groeneveld managed to ascertain that his audience knew a lot about the 98 years of the young Dutch blue bird, KLM. The session ended with a raffle to find a winner for a small KLM airplane.
Network planning in a nutshell: 4 important pillars: network portofolio, hub design, partners, fleet. Mr.Groeneveld elaborated on these four pillars.
As for Latin America, KLM Network expansion through the years in Latin America:
- KLM and Air France operated directly from Amsterdam and/or Paris
- KLM investment in Latin America: 84% more seats in 6 years
- 35 weekly frequencies 10 destinations 2005, 68 weekly frequencies 17 destinations 2017.
The Netherlands a small country but with a large airline and network. With its 17.1 million inhabitants, the Netherlands ranks only 67th based on population(8th in EUR) But with 63.6 million passengers, Schiphol is the 3rd airport in Europe based on passenger traffic …….why than so many passengers in or via Amsterdam? KLM transported 30.4 million passengers on its aircraft in 2016 and they did not all went to see the canals! 73% of KLM’s passengers are on transfer in Amsterdam!
The attendees, including some ambassadors, diplomats, friends and interested persons very much appreciated the informative lecture in which they had an opportunity to pose questions. A dinner party in the main restaurant is what concluded the enlightening evening.
