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Re:No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain by rzzzt on Monday May 01, 2023 @03:11AM (#35769892)
He used to fly domestic routes for KLM as a co-pilot, neat! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39946532
Re:No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain by t0mas88 on Monday May 01, 2023 @06:34AM (#35770990)
There aren't any domestic KLM routes, the country is roughly the size of the New York area :-)

He used to fly KLM cityhopper which is KLM's "regional airline" in US terms, going across most of Europe. Then he transitioned to the 737 because the government bought a 737 BBJ as their new private jet. The government jet is operated by KLM, so the king can fly it as first officer together with a KLM captain.

Fun fact: There is an agreement with the pilots union that the first officer that got replaced by the king operating a flight gets paid as if they flew it.

Re:No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain by zabzonk on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:04AM (#35771640)
> There aren't any domestic KLM routes, the country is roughly the size of the New York area

i don't know about now, but certainly in the 90s you could get a flight from Eindhoven to Schiphol.

i remember trying to get from Eindhoven to London on the phone and being told there were no seats - i'd have to fly to Schiphol (deep gloom on my part). Luckily, when i turned up at check-in, the lovely KLM girl on the desk said "No you don't need to do that - we'll fit you in on the Heathrow flight"

I must say that of all of the airlines i flew with, I probably liked KLM the best

Re:No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain by t0mas88 on Sunday May 07, 2023 @05:57PM (#35856004)
That's a long time ago. Even longer ago you could have done Twente airport to Amsterdam. But none of those exist anymore.
Re:No, the King doesn't own all the swans in Britain by rzzzt on Monday May 01, 2023 @10:01AM (#35772885)
Oops! It sounded entirely feasible, the "Cityhopper" designation and seeing the tiny jet threw me off.

I first read about this in an in-flight magazine; the other story was about the PM who arrived on bicycle and left it outside the palace while paying the King a visit after the election.