KLM CEO has earned a tribute from Ed Bastien, the Delta CEO, how he learned the ropes working at an airport in Amsterdam.

It applies to airline businesses and any business. Sometimes the wind is on your back, sometimes it’s all headwinds. And it’s the latter weather pattern that KLM CEO Marjan Rintel recently found himself. Like many companies, KLM has been lending banks to strong macroeconomic factors to strengthen it throughout the year, but instead, the company faces additional challenges of an uncertain global environment, a bleak outlook for global travel, and tensioned relationships with regulators.

It is a feat that a small Dutch country has created such a huge airline. With a population of only 18 million and domestic air travel is virtually not necessary, the Netherlands was, of course, not one of the busiest airports in the world. However, KLM has become Schipol a global hub for people traveling around Europe, playing the fourth largest role in Europe after London’s Heathrow, Istanbul and Paris Charles de Gaulle. Formed in 1919, KLM flew 34 million passengers last year, earning 12.7 billion euros. Currently it is part of Air France-KLM, and last year it ranked seventh in the world among the largest airlines. (KLM generates approximately 40% of the company’s total revenue.)

For the Dutch government, its growth has proven to be too good. Last year, under pressure from densely populated Amsterdam locals, pressured them to reduce the noise caused by air transport, both inside and outside the perspective, reducing the total flights allowed at the hub in 2025, down 4% to 478,000. (That will return to the level of 2023.)

Due to the typical Dutch directness, KLM called the move “unintelligible” and argued that it was unnecessary given the increased use of quiet planes at that time, warning that the government could undermine the country’s overall economic development and its place as a business hub. KLM also says the Dutch government has raised airport rates for Schipol by 41%, and Rintel has made Schipol a much more expensive airport than most others.

“If you install all these kinds of local means, people will go somewhere, so kill the business,” she says luck In an interview at KLM’s headquarters in Amstelbeen, just outside of Amsterdam. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she said. Somewhere else, it contains hubs like Frankfurt. Frankfurt is pinching the heel of the Skipol in terms of passenger volume.

Of course, Rintel is interested in Schipol, which remains a major airport, as the fate of the airport and airline are completely intertwined. KLM represents the initials of the Netherlands Royal Airline Company, and is struggling to improve profitability, and in October the airline announced plans to win 450 million euros per year from its cost structure. I’ve cut hundreds of jobs recently.

To ease the government and “prevent the future” KLM, Rintel will include investing 7 billion euros in refreshing the fleet with many new planes that reduce noise and reduce carbon emissions to promote KLM’s efforts to modernize. She also looks at the future of electric aircraft to help European airlines achieve their mandated green goals.

What she doesn’t want to see is that KLM is missing out on the air travel boom that says it will last longer than the current turbulence. She warned Delta Air Lines In March, warnings that consumer trust could potentially be undermined could hurt businesses. However, she believes she has never had the appetite for air travel. She also considers traveling innate needs for people in her small country. This is a long tradition of glove trotting, returning to the 1600s when the Dutch East Indies company was founded.

“We still see people wanting to fly. Flights are a complete, high load factor and still have solid income,” she says. Lintel points to it as an example of one million Indian citizens per month who are receiving passports and expansions at airports such as London’s Heathrow and Copenhagen.

KLM’s strategy to seduce premium passengers

Like its partner airline Delta, KLM is either working on “premiumizing” its offering or trying to generate more revenue with appetizing perks to seduce better heeled travelers. Rather than handing it as perks like many years ago, Delta trained customers to pay for top-class seats, paid the best dollars for lounge access, and created the airline Bonanza. (read luck‘s the current Delta cover story here. )

For KLM, it means touching like a Schipol high-end lounge with features such as massage, sleep cabins, and quiet work areas. Onboard, it takes the form of a business class seat with lightweight doors to create a private compartment. (Lintel points out that Delta CEO Ed Bastian recently said he was impressed with the premium service, saying he had recently flew at KLM for the first time in years.)

Despite conflicts with the government over the number of flights in Schipol, KLM has increased flights this year on existing routes such as Hyderabad San Diego in India and Edmonton in Las Vegas and Canada.

Given the potential limitations of growth at home, another tool for Air France-KLM’s growth is integration as it aims to keep up with new things emerging like British Airways, Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Air France-KLM last year won a 19.9% ​​stake in Scandinavian Airlines, and in March Air France-KLM made an offer of 300 million euros on a majority stake in Spanish airline Air Europa. “You’ll just have to look around the world, otherwise competition will come for you,” she says.

However, the cornerstone of KLM’s growth remains fixed in the importance of Schipol. Before becoming CEO in 2022, she led the National Dutch NS Railway System, and early in her career she worked at Schipol as an operator who developed detailed knowledge of how airports work until 1999. She then joined KLM for 15 years in her first stint with the airline. It was exactly that experience for the combination of backgrounds that she was ultimately hired to run KLM, making it easier to understand how to interact with the Dutch government and other stakeholders.

“If you know both companies from within, it helps you understand the work relationship, understand the pain points, understand the need to work together, and understand the basics of operations,” she says.

And this is key to helping KLM continue to be a powerful airline and play a role in connecting the Netherlands to other parts of the world, she says.

“We need to be proud in Holland who we are and what we have done in the past and we need to keep it for the future,” she says.

This story was originally introduced Fortune.com