The Dutch university town of Leiden was abuzz this week for an exciting reason. National airline KLM is in town to unveil its latest Delft miniature house collectible, and it is in Leiden.
Since the 1950s, the carrier has launched a new blue and white ceramic replica house each year on its Oct. 7 anniversary, which it gifts to World Business Class passengers on long-haul flights.
Filled and sealed with Bols Genever, they have become popular collector’s items for frequent flyers around the world with many travelers booking travel so that they can acquire new houses for their collection.
KLM, the oldest airline in the world operating under the same name, turns 106 this year, and its newest Delft house, named Villa Rameau, has a special American connection because it is home to the American Pilgrims Museum (opening next week) and near where the pilgrims lived for 12 years before they set sail to America aboard the Mayflower.
This 16th century, former saxon’s residence located next to the city’s 14th century Pieterskerk (St. Peter’s Church) and is named for the Rameau family, who played a key role in the resistance to German occupation during World War II.
How KLM selected this house
Each year, real estate owners and residents from around the country submit their house for a nomination. A committee of airline executives narrows down the list of roughly 60 submissions to a small number so that President and CEO Marjan Rintel can have the final say in selecting the winner. The goal is for each house to have both historical significance as well as timely significance.
A key factor in how this year’s house was chosen is the historic tie between the Netherlands and the United States. From pilgrims to the airline’s current joint venture with U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines, KLM connects 15 U.S. gateways with its own flights to Amsterdam. Delta, which is celebrating its own 100th anniversary this year, adds service from several other cities like Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Seattle/Tacoma, contributing to millions of passengers a year crossing the Atlantic on either carrier’s flights.
“We’re not only celebrating our birthday, but also the importance of connection and resilience,” said Marjan Rintel, president & CEO of KLM. “Especially in challenging times, this house reminds us how vital it is to stay connected.”
Villa Rameau is now home to the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. It highlights the pilgrim’s first harvest festival after the Relief of Leiden during the Eighty Years’ War when the Spanish tried to take the city. This festival is the root to today’s Thanksgiving celebrations, which were first celebrated in Leiden.
Later, the Rameau family also played a role during World War II in supporting the local resistance against German occupation.
Excitement and a big party
Each year, the winning house is a highly kept secret around the country and among airline employees and frequent flyers until Oct. 7, the airline’s birthday.
KLM invites special guests and its top customers to a celebration where the miniature house is unveiled in great fanfare. This year, the event took place inside the Pieterskerk church that is adjacent to Villa Rameau.
As guests watched from the audience, a local TV celebrity and artist began drawing a picture displayed on a large screen. He depicted scenes from the Mayflower, the pilgrims on the journey and eventually an outline of Villa Rameau that he slowly filled in before the image transitioned to this year’s 106th house. The audience erupted in applause.
“This house tells an important part of Leiden’s story, from the pilgrims to the resistance,” said Leiden Mayor Peter Heijkoop, who ceremonially received the first house on stage. “We’re proud to see this story shared with the world in this special way.”
Other speakers included Rintel herself and Perry Cantarutti, Delta senior vice president of alliances and international, who also received one of the first houses on stage.
According to Jack Metzelaar, a lifetime Flying Blue Platinum member and regular guest at these invitation-only events, “at first, we didn’t realize how special these houses were until we began to see how much excitement they draw online,” he said. “Now we have nearly 100 in our collection and have shared many of them with our daughter.”
Some of the houses in Metzelaar’s collection are quite rare, including one that was designed as a special gift for VIPs in Thailand, where he and his wife lived for many years.
Passengers look forward to adding a miniature house to their collection when World Business Class flight attendants offer them as a gift at the end of a long-haul flight. This tradition, which has been going on since the 1950s, has spurred the launch of an app, where travelers can document their collection and read the history of each house.
Fan-built websites fill the Internet, and eBay sales for these houses can rake in big bucks for collectors (be sure the KLM logo is on the bottom to avoid counterfeits). There is even a coffee table book, “Little Kingdom By The Sea,” written by author Mark Zegeling, that highlights the collection, and a new podcast series is on the way with curious tidbits and the history of each building.
Zegeling’s book is almost like a national tourist guide because the buildings chosen by KLM become instant tourist attractions and see a boost in their real estate value. Many of the houses are now home to museums, restaurants and small hotels. Almost 50 of them are in Amsterdam with the rest in other Dutch cities or Dutch-Caribbean islands.
Also in the book, but not available on flights, is a series of nearly two dozen special-version houses that the airline reserves as special gifts for top customers or VIPs. These include Dam Square Palace, often given to its lifetime elite status members, and a replica of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Amsterdam (Hilton executives were among the recipients of this special gift).
Following the speeches, a Thanksgiving-themed gala dinner within the church featured live music, and later, tours of Villa Rameau.
What’s next for KLM?
Among the innovations the airline is working on include relying on artificial intelligence to help boost its sustainability goals. It can help predict things like more precise fuel amounts to load on a flight or the exact number of meals or beverages for different destinations.
The airline is a leader in using sustainable aviation fuel (also known as SAF) and currently purchases 16% of the world’s limited supply on the market.
Rintel has been charged with making some key decisions to increase profits for the airline in the past year. There are plans to test more buy-on-board options on its short-haul economy class network, something it had resisted even when other European airlines shifted to this model.
Next year, the airline will introduce a new line of business class serviceware and overhaul its meal service to allow for more interaction between crew and passengers.
KLM has seen great success in its premium economy cabin, known as Premium Comfort, and it is looking to expand the number of these seats on many of its long-haul aircraft.
Its Flying Blue loyalty program has also seen some changes with award prices increasing in some markets, but more availability in others. Each month, Air France-KLM creates a list of city pairs where it provides discounts of as much as 50% on certain redemptions for both economy, premium economy and business class. Its loyalty program is a key component to its success with nearly two thirds of the revenue from the Dutch market linked to Flying Blue.
This is why when the topic of cost cutting comes up, Rintel vigorously supports maintaining these collectible houses as a popular staple of the airline’s culture and brand.
Metzelaar was just one of many frequent flyers who attended the event and remains fiercely loyal to the airline, citing special Dutch features like these houses.
And as author Josh Barro penned years ago in an article for New York magazine, this “powerful customer loyalty” gift has boosted customer satisfaction and loyalty with frequent travelers proudly displaying their collection in their homes or offices. The more you have becomes almost a rite of passage among frequent flyers.