The Hague — KLM, the Dutch Royal Airline, has been truer to its name than anyone expected.
The country’s reigning monarch admitted on May 17 to regularly stepping in as a guest copilot on short-haul flights of the national carrier.
“It’s important to me that I have a hobby that I have to focus on,” King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands told the Telegraaf, one of the country’s most popular dailies. The celebrated king, who just turned 50, has been copiloting roughly two return flights a month for the past 21 years.
When cockpit doors were still open, before 2001, people recognized him from time to time, he said. But mostly wearing the standard pilot’s uniform and hurrying through the crowded Schiphol, the country’s main airport, people tend not to spot him, he said. His name is not announced on flights, although he does frequently do the announcements himself.
The king came clean to his subjects because he’s looking to retrain on the Boeing 737, now that KLM is retiring its fleet of Dutch-made Fokker 70s.
Many royalists in the country were delighted at the news, though not everyone was surprised.
In this progressive and multiethnic society, the royal family owes its popularity to being seen as relatively modern, sociable and as close as possible to “normal.” During elaborate ceremonies or state visits, horse-drawn wooden carriages and opulently dressed guards are still the order of the day. The king, however, is usually seen in suit.
Willem-Alexander has a history degree from a public research university and — before he was crowned king in 2013 — was active in the country’s water management, an important topic in a country that is 26 percent below sea level.
For his 50th birthday in April on — what else — the nationally celebrated “Koningsdag,” or King’s day, he supped with all of his subjects who shared his birthday.
Tourist shops still sell postcards of the royal family, posing like they were in the 19th century, and the palace gardens serve as a public park .
While the king remains relatively popular, the monarchy itself has been losing public support in recent years, going from 80 percent in 2008 to 65 percent in 2016, according to a poll carried out by the national broadcaster.
The king enjoys the calm of the cockpit over politics.
“You cannot take your problems from the ground skyward. You can completely switch yourself off and focus on something else. That’s the greatest relaxation for me,” he said in the newspaper interview.
While he says he would enjoy flying long-haul flights, the king said he avoids being out his country overnight, in case something should happen that would require him to fulfill his kingly duties.
And while first among peers on the ground, the king is technically subordinate to the pilot when he flies his subjects around Europe. The pilots the king flies with are rotated due to security concerns. And his latest boss does not seem especially tough.
“For the relatively few flying hours the king makes, he is always very sharp,” Maarteen Putman, the KLM pilot the king has recently flown with, told the paper.
More from U.S. News
Dutch Innovator Daan Roosegaarde Has Designs for a Better Society
The Dutch Plan to Create International Abortion Fund
Dutch Elections Will Test Country’s Populist Direction
Learn More About the Netherlands
Dutch King Acknowledges a Double Life as Airline Pilot originally appeared on usnews.com
