KLM E&M Names New Leadership

Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (AFI KLM E&M) has said that the leader of its Dutch arm—KLM Engineering & Maintenance—will retire at the end of the year.

Ton Dortmans has been with KLM for 40 years and will be succeeded as executive vice president of KLM E&M on Jan. 1, 2025, by Mathieu Essenberg, who is currently executive vice president for hub operations in charge of ground services.

KLM’s ground operations underwent significant change this year when the airline sold off subsidiary KLM Equipment Services to Belgian company TCR, after which the airline became a TCR customer for the maintenance and lease of ground operations equipment at Amsterdam Schiphol, with TCR responsible for investments in ground operations equipment.

Essenberg has also overseen airframe maintenance for the KLM fleet.

His new role is mirrored in the Air France Industries half of AFI KLM E&M by Gery Mortreux, while Anne Brachet leads the combined AFI KLM E&M as a whole.

Dortmans, meanwhile, has been in charge of KLM’s maintenance operations since 2012, also serving as chairman of auxiliary power unit maintenance provider EPCOR and a board member for KLM UK Engineering.

“He has successfully steered E&M through challenging times, including significant downsizing during COVID and subsequent scaling up and recruitment efforts,” said Marjan Rintel, CEO of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

That scaling up was evident last year, which AFI KLM E&M finished with healthy growth in sales outside its parent airline group.

Third-party sales were up 29% year-on-year to €521 million ($563 million) in the final quarter, and rose 23% to €1.7 billion for the full year, “showing a very strong recovery," according to the company.

Overall sales, which included AFI KLM E&M’s in-house work, were up 18% in 2023 to €4.2 billion. Almost all of this growth stemmed from the airline group’s home territories of France and the Benelux, with external maintenance sales to the rest of the world largely flat from 2022 to 2023.

And that momentum has been sustained. AFI KLM E&M sales in the 12 months to June 30, 2024, were up roughly 25%, while third-party business grew by roughly a third, to €1 billion for the 12 months.