Sabena

If you stood at the fence in Zaventem before 2001, you saw mostly one thing: Sabena. Boeing 737s every few minutes to all over Europe, widebodies to Africa and North America in the evening, and the Belgian national airline’s logo on almost every tail. Sabena was one of the oldest airlines in the world and, for many Belgians, a piece of national identity. Then everything happened very fast: in the fall of 2001 the collapse of the Swissair group dragged Sabena down as well. This page shows you the history, fleet and identifying features so you can sort Sabena photos in your archive cleanly.

Sabena at a glance

Sabena was Belgium’s national airline and flew from 1923 to 2001. The name is an abbreviation: Société Anonyme Belge d’Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne, roughly “Belgian public limited company for the operation of air navigation.” Sabena was founded by the Belgian state as the successor to SNETA, a study company for air transport from 1919. The new airline began operations in May 1923.

Its home was Brussels from the start. Flights initially departed from Haren airfield, and after the Second World War from Melsbroek and the present-day Brussels Airport in Zaventem that grew out of it. The company headquarters were there as well. For almost eight decades Sabena was by far the airport’s most important customer – so its end in 2001 hit the airport all the harder.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code SN: appeared in the flight number, on tickets and departure boards – for example on the last flight, SN690.
• ICAO code SAB: appeared in the air traffic control flight plan.
• Callsign SABENA: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

Important for your archive: the IATA code SN lives on. The successor Brussels Airlines still flies with SN flight numbers today but uses the ICAO code BEL. If an old note says only “SN” and a number, only the date decides whether Sabena or Brussels Airlines is meant. How the two code systems relate is explained in the guide to IATA and ICAO codes.

From Haren to Léopoldville: the early years

Sabena is one of the airlines whose history reaches back to the pioneer era. In Europe it first went to London, and from the 1930s to Copenhagen, Malmö and Berlin, among others. The airline’s real profile, however, emerged in the south: Belgium had a large colony in what was then the Belgian Congo, and Sabena took over the interests of a predecessor company active there.

In 1925, Edmond Thieffry and two companions flew a Handley Page W.8 from Brussels all the way to Léopoldville, today’s Kinshasa. A route network within the Congo then grew step by step, and finally a regular connection between Belgium and Central Africa. In the 1930s the Fokker F.VII, Savoia-Marchetti SM.73 and the Junkers Ju 52 flew it. When the war reached Belgium in May 1940, European service was suspended – the Congo routes, however, kept running.

After the war things moved quickly: in September 1945 Sabena resumed European service, and in June 1946 the first route to New York followed. For long-haul it flew the DC-4, DC-6 and later the DC-7C, and in Europe the DC-3 and Convair liners such as the CV-440 Metropolitan.

Sabena and scheduled helicopter service

Sabena wrote an unusual chapter in the 1950s. From 1950, helicopters carried mail between Belgian cities, and from 1953 passengers too. From the heliport on Brussels’ Allée Verte there were connections to numerous cities, and between 1956 and 1964 even a route to Paris with a landing site at Les Invalides. At first Bell 47s were used, then Sikorsky S-55s and later S-58s. For the Expo 58 World’s Fair, helicopters brought visitors directly to the Heysel grounds. The concept remained economically difficult, and by the mid-1960s the era was over – for historians it is nevertheless one of the airline’s most fascinating episodes.

The jet age: from the 707 to Airbus

1960 marked the start of Sabena’s jet era. With the Boeing 707-320 it became the first airline from continental Europe to fly a jet across the Atlantic. From February 1961 the Sud Aviation Caravelle took over the most important European routes. You can find more on the history of the four-engine jet in the piece on the Boeing 707.

The year 1960 also brought a turning point: with the Congo’s independence, the old domestic network there ended. In 1961 Sabena took a 30 percent stake in the new Air Congo and from then on served Africa as an international destination. Africa expertise remained a trademark to the end.

In the following decades Sabena modernized the fleet regularly:

Type	At Sabena (according to common fleet lists)	Use	Spotter note
Boeing 707-320 / -320C	from 1959/60, freighters into the 1990s	Long-haul, cargo	First jet across the North Atlantic from the continent
Sud Aviation Caravelle	1961–1977	Europe	One example stands in Brussels’ Army Museum
Boeing 727-100	1967–1978	Europe	Trijet, later replaced by the 737-200
Boeing 737-200	from 1973/74 to 2001	Europe	For a long time the workhorse in Zaventem
Boeing 747-100	1970–1990	Long-haul	With a side cargo door for mixed operations
DC-10-30 / -30CF	1974–1997	Long-haul	Trijet, partly as a cargo-passenger version
Airbus A310	from 1984	Medium and long-haul	Brought the lighter blue into the design in 1984
Boeing 747-300	1986–1999	Long-haul	Small fleet with a stretched upper deck
BAe 146 / Avro RJ	1990–2001	Regional traffic	Four-engine regional jet
Airbus A330 / A340	from the 1990s	Long-haul	Replaced the DC-10 and 747
Airbus A319 / A320 / A321	under Swissair management	Europe	Part of a large, expensive order

Which 747 version you are seeing in an old photo is clarified by the guide to the variants of the Boeing 747.

At the end, in November 2001, the fleet counted 53 aircraft: 15 Airbus A319s, six A320s, three A321s, six A330-200s, four A330-300s, two A340-200s, three A340-300s, six each of the Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 as well as two leased MD-11s. More A319s and A340s were on order but were never delivered.

A340-200 or A340-300? How to sort the late long-haul jets

Photos from Sabena’s last years almost always show an Airbus on long-haul. Because Sabena flew both the A330 and both early A340 versions, a close look pays off. The first step is simple: two engines mean A330, four engines A340. The guide A330 or A340 also explains the difference.

In August 1998 the right main landing gear of a Sabena A340-200 collapsed on landing in Brussels and the aircraft veered off the runway; nobody was killed. You will find more background on the shortest A340 on the type page for the A340-200.

How to recognize Sabena

The appearance changed several times. From 1973 the aircraft wore a livery that was refreshed in 1984 with the Airbus A310: a lighter blue and a more modern typeface on the fuselage. In 1990 the airline renamed itself “Sabena World Airlines” and introduced new colors. In 1993 came the third and last logo with the stylized “S,” and in 1999 new colors debuted once more on an A340. Under Swissair management, some aircraft additionally pointed to the partnership with Swissair.

The most important feature remains the registration. Belgian aircraft carry OO-, many Sabena jets the OO-S… series, such as the 707 OO-SJB or the A340 OO-SCZ. You can read more about the design of classic liveries in the overview of legendary airline liveries.

Air France, Swissair and the road to dependence

Economically, Sabena was under pressure for a long time. The Belgian home market was small, and with Air France and KLM, strong competitors sat right next door. In the early 1990s Air France came in with a large minority stake but pulled out again after a short time.

In May 1995 Belgium found a new partner: the Swissair holding, later SAirGroup, took over 49.5 percent of the shares and management as well. For Swissair, Sabena was the first big building block of the so-called Hunter Strategy, with which the Swiss wanted to build their own network of stakes. Sabena flew as part of the Qualiflyer group, used its frequent flyer program and carried the Swissair note on the fuselage.

Under Swissair management, Sabena ordered, among other things, 34 aircraft of the A320 family – a burden that weighed heavily on the balance sheet. Losses grew, and the relationship between Brussels and Zurich became increasingly strained. In July 2001 both sides agreed in the so-called “Hotel Agreement” on a capital injection from the Swiss of 258 million euros. It was never paid.

The bankruptcy in November 2001

In early October 2001 the Swissair group collapsed, and on October 2 the Swissair fleet was grounded. One day later, on October 3, Sabena applied for creditor protection. No new money was found. On November 7, 2001, the Brussels commercial court declared bankruptcy. Affected were a good 8,000 Sabena employees themselves and more than 13,000 in the entire group – one of the largest corporate failures in Belgian history.

On the same day the last Sabena flight landed: SN690 from Abidjan via Cotonou, flown with the A340-300 OO-SCZ, with 266 passengers and eleven crew members on board. That an Africa flight of all things set the final point suited the airline’s history. You will find more collapses of this period in the overview of major airline failures in Europe.

Sabena Flight 548

The worst accident in Sabena’s history happened on February 15, 1961. The Boeing 707 OO-SJB was on its way from New York to Brussels when it crashed near Kampenhout shortly before landing. All 72 people on board and one person on the ground died. Among the victims was the entire US figure skating team, which was traveling to the world championships in Prague; the championships were canceled. The accident still moves the figure skating world today.

Subsidiaries and successors

Sabena was more than an airline. Since 1949 it had held the majority of the charter company Sobelair, which flew vacationers to the Mediterranean. In 1996 the regional airline Delta Air Transport (DAT) was added. The maintenance division lives on as Sabena technics, today with sites in France.

After the bankruptcy, DAT became the seed of a new start: in February 2002 SN Brussels Airlines began with the old code SN, the stylized “S” and part of the network, above all to Africa. The merger with Virgin Express produced today’s Brussels Airlines in 2007, which now belongs entirely to the Lufthansa Group.

Sabena today: museum and archive

There are no flying Sabena aircraft anymore. If you want to experience the airline live, go to the Royal Army Museum in Brussels. In the aviation hall in Cinquantenaire Park stands a Caravelle VI-N that flew for Sabena from 1961 to 1974, and a Sabena area shows the cockpit section of a Boeing 707.

The best approach is to combine the museum visit with a day at the airport: at the Steenokkerzeel spotter zone you see today’s SN flights, and tips around the city are given in the plane spotting guide for Brussels. If you want to identify old types in archive pictures reliably, the article Identifying vintage aircraft will help.

Common mix-ups

• Mistaking Brussels Airlines for Sabena – the successor has flown with SN since 2002, but with the ICAO code BEL and its own design.
• Automatically attributing SN in the logbook to Sabena – the IATA code has belonged to Brussels Airlines since 2002.
• Taking Sabena for a Swissair subsidiary – Swissair held 49.5 percent and led management, but Sabena remained a Belgian company in its own right.
• Logging Sobelair charters as Sabena – the subsidiary flew under its own name and codes.
• Confusing the A330 and A340 – count the engines: two or four.
• Overlooking the leased MD-11s – the two trijets came from another Belgian airline and appeared only briefly.

Conclusion

For almost eight decades Sabena was Belgium’s gateway to the world – with an Africa network that hardly any other European airline offered so densely, early jet technology and a fleet that ran from the DC-6 to the A340. The Swissair group’s stake initially brought hope but in the end a joint crash. For spotters, Sabena lives on today in museums, archives and in the code SN.