Originally Posted by
Nightstop
I should imagine the resumption of flights by KLM is partly due to Dutch government's temporary emergency employment bridging scheme.
I highly doubt that.
Unless those flights make a profit (or will wake that after a slow ramp up), it is cheaper for KLM not to fly. (as in it minimizes loss).
As you said, KLM (and any other Dutch company which aplies) gets a maximum of 90% of the paycosts compensated (with a max, which is below some senior pilots, bit in this scheme KLM has to pay full wages, even those above the maximum compensation).
This 90% is based on no turnover at all, and like you said, scales down with increasing turnover. If they start flying without eventually turning a profit, it will create some turnover therefore reducing the amount of money KLM gets from the government.
Costs have stayed the same or have risen due to the new flights, so KLM is losing.
KLM has always been looking for profits, especially with the current CEO, they have been quite proactive in trying to expand the income. They might not always have succeeded and made some dumb mistakes, but within the deadlock of a growth capped airport, increasing noise and enviromental complaints and struggles with France, they made record profits the last couple of years.
So these flights must have a profit reason, most probably to feed the (few) long haul flights, either allready or in the (close) future.