KLM subsidized their flights to Latin America with the exorbitant tariffs they charged Antilleans to fly to Amsterdam. A return ticket London-Quito, via Amsterdam-Curaçao, was routinely cheaper than an AMS-CUR ticket. KLM got away with this by releasing figures for the entire Amsterdam-South America routes, obscuring the fact that their planes flew as good as empty onward from and back to Curaçao. This resulted in not much better than break-even figures for the entire route.
But it could be worse: In 2003 KLM charged €1700 for a (shorter) flight AMS-Paramaribo and got away with it. The official Dutch Mededingingsauthoriteit [competition authority] figured that SLM Surinam Airlines was charging the same, and that everybody knew they had 700 persons on their salary list, and that money had to come from somewhere; so that price was quite reasonable, or not? So KLM surely was entitled to ask for the same, or not?
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