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Dutch king reveals double life as an airline pilot for KLM

• bradhe 9y ago
  Man site redirects to the spammiest shit on mobile.
• mcv 9y ago
  It's good that he found something useful to do with his life. But there's more relevance to this story: the Dutch government is in the process of buying a new plane. The old plane (a Fokker 70) is mostly used to fly members of government around, but is getting old, hard to maintain, and the range is too short to fly non-stop to many countries, which is obviously a rather important role for the plane. So the government needs a new plane with better range. The Airbus ACJ319 is a perfect fit, and 15 million cheaper and more modern than a Boeing 737. The government has still decided to buy a 737 instead, because the king was already training to fly a 737. I was wondering why he didn't simply switch to training for the Airbus, but apparently this is the reason. I suspect KLM has plenty of 737s for him to fly, and not the right model Airbus. So the government is basically paying 15 million extra to support the king's hobby.
  • undersuit 9y ago
    >So the government is basically paying 15 million extra to support the king's hobby. Maybe it's worth 15 million for the government to have a plane that their king can fly, not just their king, but all the Dutch pilots, KLM or otherwise, that are already capable of flying the 737s and can easily be hired by the government to fly the new 737?
  • Doxin 9y ago
    > because the king was already training to fly a 737. The government has said no such thing, and is actively denying that's the reason they bought a 737. No clue if it's true, but I'd rather you don't state it as fact when it isn't.