The UK is KLM’s #1 country; now serves 19 airports with record seats

KLM’s UK operation is considerable. 19 airports are served, with recent additions including Exeter (2025) and Jersey (2026). In the full year 2026, the carrier has 3.09 million one-way seats to the UK, which is three-quarters more than for the second most-served nation, Germany. The UK accounts for 14% of KLM’s total capacity.

The airline has a 57% share of UK-Amsterdam seats, which is the highest proportion ever other than during the pandemic. The increase in KLM’s market share is not just from its own doing, but also from the decline of other operators. British Airways, BA CityFlyer and easyJet collectively 4.4 million one-way seats, which is the lowest volume since 2010 (excluding the COVID years).

Despite the most seats to date, KLM does not have a record number of UK flights. They are at the sixth-highest level, with the difference due to having the most seats per flight. They now average 132, which is up from 128 in 2025 and from just 104 in 2004. The increase is influenced by a greater use of the 227-seat Airbus A321neo and the 132-seat Embraer E195-E2.

Enormous point-to-point and sixth freedom traffic

KLM’s huge amount of capacity is partly because of considerable point-to-point demand. According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority, 2.1 million two-way point-to-point passengers flew to/from Amsterdam last year, which is based on combining all airlines. Amsterdam was the nation’s most-trafficked international market, after Dublin (2.7 million) and Palma de Mallorca (2.2 million).

It is, of course, also from sixth freedom connecting traffic via Amsterdam. Booking data for 2025 shows that more than 3.1 million such passengers travelled with KLM and partners. Intra-Europe was the most-trafficked market (71%), followed by Asia-Pacific (8%), North America (7%), Africa (6%), Central America, the Caribbean and South America (6%) and the Middle East (2%).

The most popular country markets were Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the US, Norway, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden. The top 10 city markets were London-Düsseldorf, Aberdeen-Gdansk, London-Lagos, Manchester-Billund, London-Geneva, Birmingham-Warsaw, Edinburgh-Billund, London-Accra, London-Billund and London-Stavanger.

19 UK airports are served

They are shown on the following map. In 2026, KLM serves more airports in the UK than in any other country. Only the US comes close (15). Indeed, the Dutch flag carrier flies to more UK destinations than British Airways and plays a critical role in global connectivity from regional cities.

Many of the airports have been served for decades, with the additions since 2015 shown below. Of course, some places have ceased seeing KLM in the past two decades, including Liverpool in 2012 and Manston in 2014 (Manston has closed). Cirium data indicates that five of the 19 airports have record seats in full year 2026: Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford and Newcastle. Moreover, KLM is the largest operator at Humberside and Norwich.

• 2015: Belfast BHD
• 2016: Inverness and Southampton (previously served in the past)
• 2025: Exeter
• 2026: Jersey (previously served in the past)

With 479,000 one-way seats, London LHR remains KLM’s number one destination airport, not just in the UK but globally. While capacity is at the highest level in seven years, it remains lower than before the pandemic in 2019 (-11%) and in various other years in the past two decades. KLM has just over half of the seats in this market (51%), with British Airways having the rest.

KLM has 457-weekly departing flights to the UK in mid-August. With 53 of them, LHR is number one in this sense too. What might be surprising is that the leading equipment is the E195-E2 (31-weekly), followed by the A321neo (21) and the E190 (1).