Martinair's Niche: Amsterdam All-Cargo 747 Unit With KLM Pay

Martinair (IATA code MP, ICAO MPH) is a Dutch all-cargo airline based at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS). Legally registered as Martinair Holland N.V., it is one of the operating carriers inside the Air France KLM Martinair Cargo (AFKLMP Cargo) division, the freight arm of the Air France-KLM group. For any pilot researching Martinair today, the single most important fact is this: the airline no longer carries passengers. Since its final passenger service on 31 October 2011 (a Boeing 767-300ER, registration PH-MCL), Martinair has been a dedicated freighter operator, flying Boeing 747-400 freighters on long-haul cargo routes from Amsterdam.

The company traces its history to 1958, when Dutch aviation pioneer Martin Schröder founded Martin's Air Charter. Over the following decades it grew into an iconic Dutch charter and holiday carrier, later diversifying into scheduled and cargo operations before being absorbed into the KLM corporate sphere and, subsequently, the wider Air France-KLM group. The 2011 exit from passenger flying reflected structural pressures in the European leisure market and a group decision to concentrate passenger operations within KLM while using Martinair as the specialised Amsterdam-based freighter unit.

Martinair's four Boeing 747-400 freighters are one component of a compact group freighter fleet. Air France separately operates Boeing 777F freighters from Paris Charles de Gaulle, and both feed a single, jointly-managed cargo network. That network, marketed as AFKLMP Cargo, reaches roughly 295 destinations in 110 countries when belly cargo on passenger aircraft is included, making it one of the largest air cargo systems in the world. Cargo is a core business for the group, generating around 2.5 billion euros of revenue per year and contributing an estimated 1 billion euros per year to the passenger network through belly freight. For an up-to-date picture of the network and products, the AFKLMP Cargo corporate site is the primary source.

The pilot group is small and highly specialised. Around 150 freight pilots were associated with the operation in 2024, according to union and Dutch media reporting surrounding a new collective agreement, down from a broader cockpit workforce before the 2016 fleet reduction. These pilots fly under the Martinair Holland N.V. air operator certificate, but their pay and conditions are set by the KLM Cargo-vliegers collective labour agreement negotiated inside the KLM group, and recruitment runs through KLM's cockpit selection. In practical terms, a career at Martinair today is a KLM cargo career flown on the Boeing 747.

Martinair operates a homogeneous, single-type freighter fleet: four Boeing 747-400 freighters. Three are factory-built 747-400ERF (Extended Range Freighter) aircraft, generally seen in KLM livery, and one is a 747-400BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter), still wearing Martinair colours. Each aircraft can lift approximately 112 tonnes of payload, and the nose-loading capability of the 747 freighter makes it a specialist tool for outsized and heavy cargo that newer twin-engine freighters cannot easily accept. This standardisation is a legacy of the 2016 fleet rationalisation, when the group reduced Martinair to a compact 747-400 core to maximise utilisation and simplify maintenance and crew training.

For pilots, a single-type fleet has a clear practical meaning: once you complete the Boeing 747-400 type rating, you operate one consistent aircraft across your whole tour on the fleet. The 747-400 is a mature, well-understood aircraft with classic glass-cockpit avionics rather than the latest-generation flight decks found on the Boeing 787 or Airbus A350. Many pilots regard flying the "Queen of the Skies" as a career highlight in its own right, but it is important to be clear-eyed: these airframes were built in the early-to-mid 2000s and are now around two decades old, and the four-engine 747 is more fuel-intensive than a modern twin.

Fleet data as of 2025-2026. The Martinair A350F order was trimmed from four to three aircraft during the 2025 order revision. Air France separately operates Boeing 777F freighters at Paris Charles de Gaulle within the same cargo division.

The defining fleet story for anyone joining now is the transition ahead. According to KLM's 2025 annual report, the four Boeing 747-400 freighters are scheduled for replacement by the Airbus A350F in 2027 and 2028. Air France-KLM has a firm order for the type, though the group reduced its total commitment from eight to six aircraft in 2025, split three for Air France (Paris) and three for the Martinair / KLM Cargo side (Amsterdam). Martinair's own share was cut from four to three frames. First deliveries are now expected in the second half of 2027, with the remainder arriving in 2028. Public reporting on the order revision is available through outlets such as FlightGlobal.

Martinair cargo pilots are paid under the KLM Cargo-vliegers collective labour agreement (CAO), which aligns their structural pay progression with KLM's wider cockpit workforce. This is a major and relatively recent development. In February 2024, after strikes that began on 1 February, the union AVV and KLM reached an agreement that ended a long period of wage standstill for the former Martinair pilots. The headline outcome, as reported by NL Times, was a total pay increase of roughly 33 percent in 2024, made up of an 18 percent structural raise (14.7 percent from 1 March 2024 plus 3.0 percent from 1 July 2024) and a one-off payment of 11 percent to compensate for years of frozen wages. The deal also gave these pilots the same profit sharing as other KLM pilots, higher pensions, and employment protection through April 2026.

KLM structures cockpit pay on a "14-month" model: twelve monthly salaries plus an 8 percent holiday allowance (paid in May) and an 8.33 percent end-of-year payment (paid in December). On top of base salary, pilots receive per diems for destination stops and, in profitable years, a profit-sharing distribution. The result is that KLM long-haul pilots, including those flying the 747 freighter, sit at the upper end of the European pay market once all components are counted. The salary tables below combine the one figure that is directly published by KLM (the starting range in the current 747 freighter vacancy) with third-party analyses of the wider KLM pay scale. Treat the mid and senior figures as informed estimates, not official CAO table values.

First Officer (F/O) Pay Scale

The entry range is the officially published starting salary for the Boeing 747 Full Freighter First Officer role. Higher steps are estimates from public analyses of the KLM cockpit scale and are not an official Cargo-vliegers table.

Captain (Gezagvoerder) Pay Scale

Dutch media have summarised that a senior KLM captain can earn more than 338,000 euros per year with all allowances included. Figures are gross and exclude the effect of Dutch income tax.

Rostering at Martinair combines KLM's scheduling framework with the specific rhythm of long-haul freighter flying. KLM's cockpit careers page states that pilots work on a four-weekly schedule, giving a medium-term view of upcoming duties. Because Martinair's network is long-haul and cargo-focused, those four-week rosters are dominated by multi-day trips: a long outbound sector, a layover of at least 24 hours at destination, and a return sector, rather than a string of short legs in a single day. All scheduling is bound by EASA Flight Time Limitations (FTL), which cap annual flying at roughly 900 hours and mandate minimum rest between duties, with additional protection for night and long-haul duty.

The distinguishing feature of cargo flying is the clock. Freighters frequently depart late at night or in the early hours to line up with cargo handling windows, customs, and downstream trucking, and to slot around passenger traffic at busy airports. That means Martinair pilots do a significant amount of night flying and must manage circadian disruption carefully. On very long sectors, augmented crews of three or four pilots allow in-flight rest. The upside is a schedule with relatively few duty days per month and long recovery blocks between trips.

Illustrative pattern only, built from the published four-weekly roster structure and typical long-haul freighter trip lengths. Actual rosters vary with network demand, augmentation, and seniority. Each "Fly" block represents a day within a multi-day rotation, not a single return flight.

On paid time off, the KLM framework is generous by international standards: pilots receive at least 34 vacation days per year, depending on position and age, on top of rostered days off between trips. The four-week cycle and the small, stable route network make the pattern relatively predictable compared with a sprawling passenger operation, though cargo bookings can shift at short notice and freight schedules are more prone to last-minute changes than passenger flying.

Because Martinair pilots are employed within the KLM framework and under Dutch social law, their non-salary benefits are among the strongest in European aviation. The combination of statutory Dutch protections, the KLM collective agreement, and a dedicated aircrew pension fund creates a package that goes well beyond base pay. The 2024 CAO explicitly extended equal profit sharing and improved pensions to the former Martinair pilots, closing a long-standing gap with the rest of the KLM cockpit.

Career progression at Martinair is seniority-based, as it is throughout the KLM group, and it is shaped by two realities unique to this operation: a very small fleet, and a complicated integration history with KLM. Upgrade to Captain and access to preferred trips depend on your position on the seniority list. In a four-aircraft fleet, the number of command positions is inherently limited, so upgrade opportunities on the freighter itself can be scarce, and much depends on retirements, group-wide movements, and the pace of fleet change. As a rough guide, command upgrade timelines within the KLM group have historically fallen in the region of 8 to 15 years, but the specific trajectory for a cargo pilot is heavily influenced by fleet size and the coming transition.

The integration history matters. When Martinair pilots have moved into KLM, seniority has been a recurring point of friction. Discussion within the professional pilot community records that transferring pilots were, at one stage, granted "zero seniority" in the KLM system, retaining their salary and pay rises but starting from the bottom of the KLM list. Because seniority governs command upgrade, trip choice, and roster quality, this has been a genuine grievance and a driver of the union tensions covered later in this article. Any pilot planning a long-term future here should ask pointed questions about how their seniority would be treated across a future fleet transition or group move.

Recruitment for Martinair's cargo cockpit runs through KLM's standard pilot selection, with the vacancy advertised explicitly as "First Officer B747 Full Freighter" on the KLM cockpit careers portal. This is an experienced-pilot pathway: KLM hires licensed pilots rather than running an in-house ab-initio cadet scheme for this role. Candidates already hold their licence and are then trained onto the Boeing 747-400. The process is rigorous, multi-stage, and conducted partly in Dutch, so language readiness is essential from the outset.

Licence & Experience Requirements

Education, Language & Nationality

Selection Stages

Cargo flying still comes with layovers, and Martinair's are firmly long-haul. Public AFKLMP Cargo material identifies a compact full-freighter network of roughly 14 dedicated destinations in 2025, spread across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, and Martinair's 747-400 freighters are explicitly named on several of these routes. A defining feature of the operation is perishables: the group shipped more than 84,000 tonnes of flowers from Africa and Latin America to Amsterdam in 2018, with key origins in Kenya, Ecuador, and Colombia. The five routes below are drawn from recent, specifically-sourced references to Martinair 747-400 freighter operations rather than fabricated picks.

Martinair is best measured against Europe's other major freight operators rather than passenger carriers. The two most natural comparators are Cargolux, the Luxembourg-based all-cargo specialist flying modern Boeing 747-8 freighters, and Lufthansa Cargo, the Frankfurt-based freight arm of the Lufthansa Group flying the Boeing 777F. The chart below rates all three across the same six metrics used in the scorecard. Scores are editorial estimates based on publicly available data, fleet profiles, and industry benchmarks.

Key Takeaways from the Comparison

Martinair leads on pay and social benefits. KLM's cockpit pay scale is among the richest in Europe, and the 2024 CAO lifted the former Martinair pilots roughly 33 percent while equalising their profit sharing and improving pensions. Combined with the dedicated Dutch aircrew pension fund, at least 34 vacation days, and strong statutory protections, Martinair edges ahead of both Cargolux and Lufthansa Cargo on the salary and benefits axes, even though high Dutch taxes erode net pay.

Fleet modernity favours the competitors, for now. Cargolux flies the modern Boeing 747-8F and Lufthansa Cargo the Boeing 777F, both newer and more efficient than Martinair's ageing 747-400s. That gap is set to close from 2027-2028 as Martinair takes the Airbus A350F, a genuinely next-generation freighter, but until then the fleet axis is the clearest area where Martinair trails.

Job security is the most nuanced axis. All three operate in a cyclical cargo market. Martinair benefits from the backing of a large diversified group and secured employment protection to April 2026 in the last deal, but its freighter fleet is tiny and the A350F order was trimmed from four to three aircraft, which introduces real uncertainty around future staffing. Cargolux and Lufthansa Cargo run larger, more established dedicated freighter fleets, which supports slightly higher security scores here.

Work-life balance is broadly comparable. Long-haul night cargo flying is demanding at all three, but Martinair's single Amsterdam base, four-weekly roster, and generous leave keep it competitive. Career progression is where Martinair's small fleet weighs most: fewer command slots and the seniority complications of KLM integration make upgrades less predictable than at a larger dedicated freight carrier.

Industrial relations are unusually central to the Martinair story, because the pilots' pay and seniority have been contested for years. Two unions matter. The VNV (Vereniging van Nederlandse Verkeersvliegers) is the long-established principal Dutch pilots' union and the dominant voice for KLM cockpit crew, leading landmark negotiations such as the pilot pension fund's move to collective defined contribution. The AVV emerged as the decisive representative for the former Martinair cargo pilots, negotiating the breakthrough 2024 collective agreement with KLM after strike action.

The Union Landscape

How Pay and Conditions Are Set

Working conditions rest on a layered framework: Dutch labour law, EASA Flight Time Limitations, and the KLM collective agreements, including the specific Cargo-vliegers CAO. The 2024-2025 agreement, published by AVV, deliberately aligned the cargo pilots' contract duration and structural pay increases with the other KLM domains, ending the sense that cargo crews were a second tier. The CAO documents themselves are available on the AVV union website, which is the most authoritative public source for the exact contract text.

Recent Disputes & Milestones

Before applying or making any career decision, verify the details directly with official sources. These are the key websites and organisations relevant to a Martinair / KLM cargo pilot career: