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This is your captain or should we say King speaking! King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was spotted at Schiphol Airport on Thursday. X (formerly Twitter) user Menno Swart snapped a photo of the Dutch monarch dressed in his uniform at the airport.
His Majesty is “extremely interested in flying,” per the Dutch Royal House. Willem-Alexander obtained his private pilot’s license in 1985 followed by his commercial pilot’s license (with an instrument rating) in 1987.
In 1989, the King obtained a supplementary license to fly multi-engine jet aircraft and in 2001, he earned his airline transport pilot license. The Dutch Royal House notes on its website that “in order to keep in practice, he occasionally flies as a guest pilot for KLM Cityhopper. Until mid-2017 he flew either the government aeroplane – registration PH-KBX – or a Fokker 70 from the regular fleet.”
In mid-2017, King Willem-Alexander “trained to fly the Boeing 737” and obtained his license in June of 2017, “allowing him to continue flying as a guest pilot with KLM.”
His Majesty has told De Telegraaf in the past (via the BBC) that he finds “flying simply fantastic.” Revealing his “real motive for training on the 737,” the King admitted that it “seemed nice to fly to other destinations one day, with more passengers and bigger distances.”
Flying is also a relaxing hobby for the Dutch King. He shared (via The Irish Times ), “For me the most important thing is that I have a hobby for which I need to concentrate completely. You have an airplane, passengers and a crew. You carry responsibility for that. You cannot take your problems from the ground with you in the sky. You can for a brief moment disconnect and concentrate on something else. That is the biggest relaxation of flying to me.”