ASL Airlines Belgium

If you stand at the fence in Liège, you see them constantly: windowless Boeing 737s with Belgian registrations, and in between a jumbo freighter rolling heavily down the long runway. That is ASL Airlines Belgium – for many spotters still “the TNT.” In a good 25 years, the airline has changed its name, its owner and almost its entire fleet but has stayed true to its home at Liège. Here you will learn where it comes from, what it flies today and how to attribute its aircraft reliably.

ASL Airlines Belgium at a glance

ASL Airlines Belgium is a Belgian cargo airline with its home base at Liège Airport in Wallonia. The group names Paris-Charles de Gaulle as its second major base. The airline does not carry passengers on scheduled services – it lives on parcels, express shipments and cargo for freight forwarders.

The core business on short and medium routes is the European network of FedEx Express. For that, ASL Belgium mainly deploys Boeing 737 freighters. With jumbo freighters, the airline also flies long-haul routes, according to ASL including to China and the USA – for integrators, freight forwarders and online retailers. In addition, ASL Belgium coordinates flights of other airlines that provide aircraft for the European network.

The airline belongs to ASL Aviation Holdings, headquartered in Swords near Dublin. Its best-known sisters include ASL Airlines Ireland, the former Air Contractors, and ASL Airlines France. Together they move many parcels across Europe – even if hardly any passenger has ever heard of them.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code 3V: appears in flight numbers and cargo bookings but is rarely visible to spotters.
• ICAO code TAY: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers – this is the code you search for.
• Callsign QUALITY: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

All three identifiers date from the time as TNT Airways and were kept when the airline was renamed in 2016. That is handy for you: even when an aircraft wears a customer’s colors, the registration and – as long as the flight runs under TAY – the ICAO code and callsign reveal who is actually flying it.

From TNT Airways to ASL: the history

An express service builds itself an airline

The roots lie with the express service TNT, which originally came from Australia and later belonged to the Dutch postal and logistics group. At the end of the 1990s, TNT was looking for a central transshipment point for its European parcel network – and found it in Liège-Bierset: plenty of space, a long runway, night operations and a location right between Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

On July 20, 1999, TNT Airways was founded there, and the Belgian operating license followed in October 1999. The first aircraft were freighter versions of the BAe 146-300 – the four-engine high-wing aircraft was popular with express services because of its performance on short runways and its relatively quiet engines – as well as Airbus A300 widebody freighters. From 2000, the airline increasingly flew with its own freighters and joined IATA in August 2000.

Growth with jumbos and 737s

In the following years, Boeing 747 freighters and routes to Asia were added. From around 2003, the Boeing 737-300 joined the fleet, partly in versions that could be converted between cargo and passengers. With a passenger license from March 2004, TNT Airways even flew charter flights, including for Club Med. During this time, Liège grew into the group’s most important express hub.

A well-known chapter of the company’s history is an incident on June 15, 2006: a TNT Airways Boeing 737-300 on its way from Liège to London Stansted diverted to East Midlands because of poor visibility, touched down beside the runway on approach and lost its right main landing gear in the process. The crew flew on to Birmingham and landed there without injuries. The investigation named, among other things, a badly timed radio call, the loss of situational awareness and the failure to go around as causes.

The sale to ASL

The big turning point came with FedEx’s takeover of TNT Express. Under EU law, European airlines must be majority-owned by Europeans – so a US group could not simply buy TNT Airways along with it. TNT therefore divested the airline: in May 2016, Ireland’s ASL group took it over. TNT Airways became ASL Airlines Belgium, and a multi-year contract ensured that the aircraft would keep flying for the joint FedEx and TNT network.

For your archive, that means: photos with TNT titles, the orange TNT look or TNT BAe 146s belong to the same company history as today’s ASL freighters. How to classify such transition phases with mixed liveries is explained in the post on hybrid liveries.

The fleet: 737 freighters and jumbos

Today’s fleet is much leaner than in TNT days: two generations of Boeing 737 on short-haul, the Boeing 747-400 on long-haul. The exact numbers vary depending on source and cutoff date. Public fleet lists in 2025 came to about 34 to 35 aircraft with an average age of a good 20 years. So expect an order of magnitude, not a fixed number.

Type	Role	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-800BCF	Backbone of the European express network, about two dozen aircraft	No windows, large cargo door at the front left, NG engines with rounder inlets than the Classic
Boeing 737-400 freighter	Older narrowbody freighters, only a few left	Shorter than the 737-800, Classic engines with a flattened underside
Boeing 747-400F and 747-400ERF	Long-haul, including to China and North America	Short upper deck without windows, four engines, winglets

Boeing 737-800BCF: the workhorse

Most of ASL Belgium’s aircraft are Boeing 737-800BCFs – former passenger jets converted into freighters in Boeing’s conversion program. The ASL group has procured such conversions for several of its airlines. In Belgium, they gradually replaced older types and now fly the majority of the night network.

From the outside, you recognize the conversion by the missing row of windows and the large cargo door at the front left. You can hardly see the variant (BCF or a conversion by another provider) on the aircraft itself, though – it is in the fleet list. The manufacturer is Boeing.

Boeing 737-400: the old guard

Alongside the 737-800, a few 737-400 freighters still fly. They belong to the Classic generation and can be recognized by the shorter fuselage and the engine inlets flattened at the bottom. Their number has dropped noticeably in recent years. If you still want to photograph them, you should not wait too long – a binding retirement schedule is not publicly known, however. How to reliably tell Classic from NG is explained in the guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

Boeing 747-400F and 747-400ERF: jumbos from Liège

On long-haul, ASL Belgium deploys the Boeing 747-400F and -400ERF. Both versions were built as freighters from the factory. You recognize them by the short upper deck without a row of windows – unlike converted passenger jumbos, which keep the long upper deck. The ERF version has a higher takeoff weight and therefore more range but looks practically the same from the outside. Depending on source and date (2025), there are five jumbos in the inventory.

According to ASL, the 747 flies scheduled and charter cargo, including to China and the USA. Because Liège is also a hub for e-commerce from China, that fits the location well. How to tell the 747 variants apart is shown in the post Recognizing the Boeing 747-100 to 747-8.

Historical types: BAe 146, A300, 757 and 777F

The fleet has changed almost completely since TNT days. Former types include:

• BAe 146-300 freighter – the airline’s first aircraft from 1999.
• Airbus A300 as a widebody freighter in the early days.
• Boeing 737-300, partly as freighters, partly convertible; according to fleet lists in service until 2018.
• Boeing 757-200 freighter – according to fleet lists until 2022.
• Boeing 777F – only briefly under ASL, according to fleet lists until 2017.

How to recognize ASL Airlines Belgium

The most important rule: registration and code beat livery. ASL Belgium flies some of its aircraft in ASL colors, while others look neutral or carry traces of former operators. And in the FedEx network, aircraft of other airlines fly as well – so a 737 on the Liège apron is not automatically an ASL Belgium aircraft.

These features help you:

• Registration: ASL Belgium registers its aircraft in Belgium, the prefix is OO-. A 737-800 freighter with an OO- registration is a strong hint at the airline. More on the logic behind it is in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.
• ICAO code TAY on the tracker and the callsign “QUALITY” on the radio.
• No cabin windows and a large cargo door at the front left on the 737 freighters.
• Short upper deck without windows on the jumbos – a factory-built freighter.
• Time of day: The express network flies mainly in the evening, at night and in the early morning.

Why parcel services use contract airlines at all is explained in the background piece on the express integrators DHL, FedEx and UPS. General tips for recognizing freighters – cargo door, missing windows, short upper deck – can be found in the article Recognizing cargo aircraft.

Spotting ASL Airlines Belgium

Liège: the home base

No place is as sure as Liège. Here the airline’s 737 freighters and jumbos take off and land daily, often alongside widebody freighters from FedEx, Challenge and numerous charter operators. The airport operates around the clock and has a long main runway, so depending on the wind you get very different perspectives. There is no observation deck – you stand at fences, hills and meadows around the runway.

All locations with light, access and ladder needs are described in the spot guide to the Liège Airport spotting locations. How the site became a cargo hub and which other airlines operate there is on the page for Liège Airport. Another Belgian cargo airline with a Liège connection is Challenge Airlines.

Paris-Charles de Gaulle and the FedEx network

The second major base is Paris-Charles de Gaulle, where FedEx runs its European hub. The ASL Belgium 737 freighters show up here regularly. Helpful locations and tips are collected in the guide Plane spotting at Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

In addition, the freighters serve destinations in the European express network. Which airports those are at the moment changes with contracts and schedules. One reference work names, for example, daily flights to Erfurt-Weimar, long a TNT transshipment point in Germany – whether that still applies as of October 2026, you should check on a tracker beforehand. As a rule, do not plan based on old spotter reports; look at where flights with the code TAY are currently going.

Photo tips for night freighters

Many ASL Belgium movements fall in twilight or at night. Then high ISO values, fast lenses and a steady stance help. Practical tips are given in the article Photographing aircraft at night. At Liège, though, there is now a lot going on during the day as well – you can often catch the jumbos in good light if you know the wind and the runway direction in use.

Common mix-ups

• Equating ASL Belgium with FedEx – the airline flies for FedEx but belongs to Ireland’s ASL group.
• Mixing up ASL Belgium with ASL Ireland or ASL France – the sisters share the name but not registrations and codes.
• Treating TNT Airways as a separate, vanished airline – it is the same operation under its old name.
• Expecting a current 757 or 777F – both types are retired.
• Equating the 737-400 and 737-800 – the Classic is shorter and has the typically flattened engine inlets.
• Taking every jumbo at Liège for ASL – many 747 freighters there belong to Challenge, charter operators or foreign cargo airlines. The OO- registration alone is not enough, since other Belgian operators use it too – the code TAY is decisive.

Conclusion

ASL Airlines Belgium is the quiet constant at the cargo airport of Liège. From TNT Airways with BAe 146s, A300s, 757s and 777Fs has emerged a lean Boeing cargo airline that serves the European FedEx network at night and flies jumbos all the way to China and North America. If you note the registration and ICAO code, you will attribute its aircraft reliably – and recognize the TNT past of the same company in old photos.