AVIATION: Foot in the Door

Famed K.L.M., Royal Dutch Air Lines, the world's oldest international flyer (1920), last week added another first to its long pioneering history.

At Miami's 36th Street airport, a K.L.M. Lockheed Super-Electra landed ten passengers, 25,000 first-flight "covers" for stamp collectors, eight hours and 44 minutes after taking off from Curacao. It was the first scheduled Caribbean-U.S. flight ever made by a commercial plane that did not belong to Pan American Airways.

For eight years K.L.M. has had a network centered around the oil-rich Dutch islands of Curaco and Aruba. Before the war, this 2,400-mile route from nowhere to nowhere was a...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!