What is Sn Brussels Airlines?

Brussels Airlines
IATA SN	ICAO DAT	Callsign ESTAIL
Founded		1967
Hubs		Brussels Airport
Frequent flyer program		Privilege
Member lounge		Business Centre
Fleet size		38
Destinations		90
Parent company		SN Airholding
Headquarters		Zaventem (Brussels), Belgium
Key people		Neil Burrows (CEO); Etienne Davignon, chairman
Website: [1]

SN Brussels Airlines (SNBA) was a former national airline of Belgium, which mainly operated from Brussels Airport. SNBA was the trading name of the Belgian airline Delta Air Transport. SNBA was a full-service airline, connecting Brussels with the rest of Europe. It also flew to Africa, continuing Sabena's extensive network there. The airline merged with Virgin Express into Brussels Airlines which started operations on 25 March 2007 ^[1]

History

The airline was founded in 2002, when a group of Belgian investors (companies, financial institutions and regional investment companies, as well as the Brussels and Walloon governments), set up SN Airholding, headed by Etienne Davignon. After the 2001 bankruptcy of Sabena, Belgium's flag carrier airline, Belgium was left without a national airline. In February 2002, SN Airholding took over the Belgian airline DAT, a subsidiary of Sabena that had survived the bankruptcy, and changed its trading name to SN Brussels Airlines.



From this point, a huge financial and strategic reorganization started lead by the former CEO Peter Davies and his consultant-adviser Prof. Jean Frederic Mognetti.

The deal was to transform the company into a cash generator which wasn't an easy bet. Thanks to many tools and a lot of work the company achieved its transformation in three years.

On 12 April, 2005 SN Brussels took holding control of Virgin Express and on 31 March, 2006 they announced their merger. On 7 November, 2006 they announced at a press conference held at Brussels Airport that the new airline would be called Brussels Airlines.

The decision of the merger was lead by financial interests and actually the result of an overwhelming pressure coming from shareholder leader, Etienne Davignon. As a result, the team who had win the first bet decided to quit the company due to a conflict of interest with Mister Davignon.

In 2007, one must acknowledge that Rob Kuijpers, SN executive chairman, was right, Virgin wasn't a good affair for SNBA.

In spite of being sold to a major such as BA, Lufthansa, or Air France, Brussels Airlines stock holders saw the branch where they were seated and burned all the cash generated by the former team.

Destinations

Further information: SN Brussels destinations

Fleet

As of August 2006, the SN Brussels Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:

SN Brussels Airlines Fleet

Aircraft	Total	Passengers	Notes
Airbus A319-100	3	132
Airbus A330-300	3	264
Avro RJ85	14	82
Avro RJ100	12	97
BAe 146-200	6	84

As of April 2006, the average age of the SN Brussels Airlines fleet was 9.8 years.

Codeshare agreements

SN Brussels Airlines has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

• American Airlines
• Etihad Airways
• Hainan Airlines

Livery

The airline had various color schemes before finally settling on a uniform scheme for the fleet. The upper fuselage is white, while the belly and engines were painted lilac. An orange cheat line runs between the white and lilac parts of the fuselage. The tail shows the old Sabena "S". The website address is near the end of the fuselage. There are differences in livery between the Avro planes and the Airbus planes: most notably, the company name is written on the white part of the fuselage for the Airbus planes, but on the lilac part on the Avro.

Both this livery and the Virgin Express livery are being replaced with the Brussels Airlines livery.

Gallery

SN Brussels Airlines Avro RJ85

SN Brussels Airlines Avro RJ85 at Geneva Airport

References

External links

• Quand la Belgique redécolle : L'express Magazine Français
• SN Brussels Airlines Website
• Corporate website SN Brussels Airlines
• Videos of Brussels Airlines
• SN Brussels Airlines Fleet Age
• SN Brussels Airlines Airbus Fleet Detail
• Photos of SN Brussels Airlines aircraft

•  • [ e] Members of the Association of European Airlines

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