For eleven years the Dutch have been trying mightily to get new U.S. air routes to add to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' profitable runs from Amsterdam to New York and Curasao to Miami. They have been opposed both by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which feels that the U.S. is already well serviced, and U.S. airlines, which want no more competition. Domestic lines keep a watchful eye on foreign carriers since the State Department granted lush U.S. air routes to West Germany's Lufthansa (TIME, June 27, 1955). But the Dutch made their campaign an affair of national honor. Last week, faced with rising Dutch feeling, the U.S. State Department decided to please a NATO ally at the risk of angering U.S. airlines. It granted the Dutch two new routes: KLM will now be allowed to land at Houston on its Amsterdam-Montreal-Mexico City route, fly from Curagao to New York (either directly or through Miami).
Complaints from All. The department's decision, which had to be approved by the White House, did not seem to please anybody. Disappointed at their failure to get their No. 1 goal—a Montreal-to-Los Angeles route—the Dutch made an unprecedented complaint to Secretary of State Dulles, tartly announced that they will shortly renew this demand. Less than 24 hours after the department's announcement, the Senate also noted its displeasure ; it voted to restrict presidential authority over international airline agreements in protest against the grant. (A similar Senate proposal died in the House last year.)
Domestic airlines argue that the new routes for KLM (worth about $1,000,000 a year in passenger and freight traffic) will open the door for much more foreign competition for U.S. airlines. The State Department got in return rights for U.S. carriers to fly from any point in the U.S. to Amsterdam and beyond (the U.S. now flies from Amsterdam only to Frankfurt) and into and beyond Surinam and The Netherlands Antilles (Pan American already flies to the Antilles). But U.S. carriers belittle such concessions, point out that air traffic between the U.S. and the Antilles is light, and that Amsterdam offers little opportunity for extra European traffic.
The Dutch, for their part, insist that the new U.S. routes are a matter of survival for KLM, which is 90% government-owned. KLM feels it must expand to remain healthy since it cannot hope for a greater share of the European market, this means turning to the U.S. and Canada. The biggest foreign purchaser of U.S. air transports (all its equipment is U.S. made), KLM also needs dollars to pay for some 30 new U.S. planes on order. But to the proud and independent Dutch, the prestige of their beloved KLM, the world's oldest continuing airline, is as much at stake as money.