Fly long-haul business class with KLM and, somewhere over the Atlantic, a cabin crew member appears with a tray of little blue-and-white ceramic houses. You pick one. It's filled with Bols genever. And you've just become part of one of aviation's longest-running traditions — one that traces back to a regulatory loophole.
The backstory is the good part. Before the US Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, fares and policies were controlled by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which barred airlines from handing out tangible goodies to lure passengers. In 1952, KLM sidestepped this by giving business class travellers miniature Delft-style houses filled with gin — arguing, essentially, that it wasn't a gift at all, just a to-go drink that happened to be served in ceramics rather than a glass. The gambit worked, and the houses became a fixture.
The collection now numbers 107 pieces, one for every year of KLM's existence, with a new house unveiled each October 7 — the airline's birthday. The numbers had to catch up with history, though: for KLM's 75th anniversary in 1994, fifteen houses were released at once. Each one depicts a real Dutch building, and not always a house — the Heineken brewery and KLM's former headquarters have both featured, alongside rarities like the Rembrandt house and the Anne Frank house. Most are in the Netherlands (a bit more than half in Amsterdam), but there's one rebel: house #85 sits in Willemstad, Curaçao. They're small — no more than 10cm by 5.5cm — but KLM churns out around 850,000 a year. Roughly 150,000 are alcohol-free, earmarked for flights touching the Middle East.
So how do you get one? Simple: book an intercontinental KLM flight in business class. Near the end of the flight the crew brings the tray around, and you choose one house per person — from a rotating handful of the collection currently in circulation. Serious collectors can log their haul in KLM's iOS and Android apps, which track what you own and tell the story behind each building.
Two insider tips worth knowing. First, there's a healthy secondhand market online if you're chasing a specific number you missed. Second, and less well known: duplicates can be swapped inside KLM's Crown Lounge 52 at Amsterdam Schiphol (the non-Schengen one). Not every house will be on hand, but it's a legitimate way to trade up.
Why should a regular traveller care? Because few perks in commercial aviation come with this much charm per gram. It costs KLM pennies, yet these tiny houses inspire genuine devotion — people choose routings and book business class years in advance partly for the next number in the sequence. If you're splashing out on a long-haul business fare with KLM anyway, the house is a free souvenir with a real story behind it, and a decent reason to linger in the lounge on your way out of Schiphol to hunt for a swap.
