One would think that airlines, other than their routes, would be run in pretty much the same way. Not so in KLM's case. This company took great interest in their employees. KLM spared no dollars when it came to investing in training and supporting their people, which is what I found out as time went on.
Just a little background: KLM is the oldest commercial airline in the world, still operating under its original name. It was founded by Albert Plessman in1919 and commenced operation officially out of Amsterdam, on May 17, 1920.
During World War Two, Holland was occupied by the Germans. However, they had kept aircraft in Curacao, as they had service between Amsterdam and the Dutch Islands. They tried to operate some routes in neutral countries. In December 1941, KLM had a DC-3 destroyed on the ground by Japanese fighter planes in Sumatra, Dutch East Indies All passengers and crew members perished. They had another DC-3 shot down after it left Lisbon, on June 1st 1943, by eight German fighter planes. The thirteen passengers and four crew members were killed. I didn't mean to give you so much history, other than to emphasize the difficulty it was to carry on during the war. Many of the KLM Dutch employees, who had lived through the war in Holland, had stories about their undercover activities that would make heart stopping movies.
Jan Van Eckeren, my local manager in Hartford, was a very nice guy. We spent many days together on the road, when I introduced him to the travel agents and commercial accounts in our sales area. The inside sales staff were very helpful in getting me acquainted with some of the company regulations.
I had joined KLM on February 15, 1960. Time seemed to pass very fast and at the end of September, KLM informed me that I was to attend a twelve day sales course in the Netherlands. The course would be from October 24 to November 5. in The Hague, Holland.
Participants would be housed at the American Hotel in Scheveningen which is the Dutch vacation beach area near The Hague. There would be fourteen sales trainee participants from all over the world. This particular class had members from Teheran, Glasgow, Cologne, Sidney, Rotterdam, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Calgary, Valparaiso, Beverly Hills, Detroit, Schiphol, Tegucigalpa and myself, from Hartford. I still have all the class material in my files. I could write a dozen pages on what I learned from my classmates, the Dutch instructors, and more.
One of the amazing experiences of this training course was my introduction to Europe. When KLM found out that this was my first trip to Europe, they invited me to visit some other cities and countries after the class was over. Of course I accepted the opportunity. After classes, on Nov. 5th I was driven to Schiphol Airport to board my KLM flight to Rome, for a three night stay. On the 8th, it was Switzerland, Zurich for one night, on the 9th, I was in Davos, on the 10th, in Kitzbuhel, and then on to Austria and Vienna. The highlight of the trip was the final two days in London. My mother and father were born in England, so I had always wanted to visit their homeland.
This was my real introduction to KLM and just the beginning of my future travel in the years ahead. It was certainly a change from Eastern; I was now convinced my job change was right.
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