The puzzling thing about this is that on the face of it, the flights appeared to be doing well. There were sometimes light loads on the midweek morning flights, but most rotations appeared to be at least 90% LF, often full. So you'd assume the business class seats were selling as well as economy, which would have helped yield.
Of course the only people who'll know are KLM.
The route will continue with Flybe and I guess we could see a return to the old days of a KLM codeshare.
It's a kick in the stones for the airport though, losing a world-renowned carrier and skyteam alliance connection. 2mppa might be harder to maintain next year as a result. By my maths that'll be approximately 100,000 less seats per year without KLM.
I really thought that KLM were one of those airlines who, once they started serving somewhere, stuck with it. What was the last airport that they dropped in the UK, was it Liverpool?