KLM passengers now face a string of cancellations between October 26 and early March 2027, as the airline grounds more planes than initially expected for maintenance and repairs.
Last week offered a little taste of the chaos to come, with at least five intercontinental routes scrapped at the last minute for various technical reasons, NU.nl reports.
By cancelling flights in advance, KLM hopes to keep more of its long-range fleet available as backups. In doing so, the airline hopes to make the rest of its schedule more reliable.
Which KLM flights are cancelled?
Helaas, this is still uncertain. KLM hasn’t revealed how many flights, exactly, will be cancelled — or which destinations are likely to be affected.
An airline spokesperson tells NOS that they’re “looking at flights with the least impact, where we can rebook passengers as much as possible”.
KLM is already in the midst of adjusting its fleet to the new constraints. The airline has been forced to operate certain flights with a different aircraft than usual, as per NU.nl, or cancel the flight in advance.
However, their spokesperson admits, “every cancellation is one too many”. Now that’s a sentiment we can agree with!
Why are KLM planes being grounded?
It’s all down to a perfect storm of circumstances.
As their spokesperson tells NU.nl: “more aircraft than usual are currently temporarily out of service. This is due, among other things, to unplanned maintenance, damage repair, and maintenance work taking longer than anticipated.”
And the extra scrutiny from the ILT (Dutch Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate) may well have a part to play.
In May of this year, KLM Engineering & Maintenance came under fire for allegedly failing to comply with new standards for handling and registering minor aircraft maintenance.
While KLM hasn’t named the extra supervision as a reason for the current wave of cancellations, it isn’t the first time the airline’s maintenance has caused travel headaches. In May 2025, seven of its Boeing 787s were grounded after the airline failed to follow the correct maintenance procedure.
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