COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de KLM te Waingapu TMnr 10029610

Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij Interinsulair Bedrijf Batavia (KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf or simply KLM-IIB; English: Royal Dutch Interinsular Airline Services

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

) was an airline based in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

(present-day

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

) and the predecessor to

Garuda Indonesia Garuda Indonesia is the flag carrier of Indonesia, headquartered at Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. A successor of KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf, it is a member of SkyTeam and the second-largest airline of Indonesia after Lion Air, operat ...

History

KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf (KLM-IIB) was founded on 1 August 1947 at Kemayoran Airport as a

KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...

subsidiary (due to the dissolution of Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij (KNILM)), and all of the aircraft in KNILM fleet were later transferred to KLM-IIB. They also received twenty Dakota aircraft, previously operated by

Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( nl, Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. Th ...

''(''KNIL). Based in Java, their destinations consisted of domestic routes (within Indonesia) and also international routes (such as

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

; Penang,

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ms, Tanah Melayu British) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. U ...

; and Manila,

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

), operated by several Dakotas and nine Consolidated PBY Catalina amphibious aircraft. KLM-IIB_boarding_pass

Nationalization by Indonesian government

On 28 December 1949, KLM-IIB was nationalized by the Indonesian government, as agreed by both the Indonesian and Dutch governments during the 1949 Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference. Upon the

nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

, the airline was renamed as

, now the flag carrier of

, and it remains to this day.

Fleet

DC-3 Dakota The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

, 20 * Consolidated PBY Catalina, 9

Accidents and incidents

* On 10 February 1948, Flight 947, a Douglas C-47B (PK-REA), lost control and crashed near Padalarang while attempting to return to Bandung following an engine failure, killing all 19 on board. * On 8 March 1948, a Consolidated PBY Catalina (PK-CTC) was damaged during takeoff at

Poso Poso ( Old Spelling: ''Posso'') is the administrative capital of Poso Regency, Indonesia. It is the main port and transportation hub for the central-southern coast of Central Sulawesi. Its urban area consists of three districts, Poso Kota, North ...

, Sulawesi and sank, due to "a misunderstanding about the starting procedure to be followed between captain .L. van Kooijand 2nd pilot .G. Nicolaicrashed during takeoff." None of the nine crew and passengers were injured. It was damaged beyond repair. It "took all the luggage to the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

References

{{Airlines of Indonesia Defunct airlines of Indonesia 1947 establishments in the Dutch East Indies Airlines established in 1947 Defunct seaplane operators