Virgin Express

If you went spotting in Brussels in the late 1990s, then alongside the Sabena jets you almost certainly saw red Boeing 737s with the Virgin logo. Virgin Express was the Belgian budget airline from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group – and one of the airlines from which Brussels Airlines later emerged. This page shows you where Virgin Express came from, which aircraft it flew and how to recognize it with confidence on old photos.

Virgin Express at a glance

Virgin Express was a Belgian low-cost airline based at Brussels Airport that flew from 1996 until the merger with SN Brussels Airlines. Its company headquarters was right on the grounds of Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and almost all flights departed from there, too. The concept was typical of the time: cheap scheduled flights without frills, tickets sold mainly over the internet, destinations mainly in the south of Europe.

As a brand, Virgin Express belonged to the Virgin Group, which was also behind Virgin Atlantic. Operationally, though, the Brussels budget airline had little to do with the British long-haul airline – it was a separate company with its own flight operations, its own fleet and Belgian registrations.

Measured against the later low-cost wave, Virgin Express was rather small: in 2004, the airline carried around 2.05 million passengers and had a good 700 employees. It is still fascinating because it bridges a gap in Belgium – from the charter era of the early 1990s through the competition with Sabena to today’s Brussels Airlines.

The history in stages

The backstory begins with a failure. The Belgian charter airline Trans European Airways ceased operations in autumn 1991. From its remains, Victor Hasson and Georges Gutelman founded EuroBelgian Airlines, or EBA for short, in November 1991. It launched in April 1992 with Boeing 737-300s and flew mainly charter service.

The takeover by Virgin changed mainly the image and the direction. Virgin Express bet on scheduled flights at low prices and wanted to challenge Sabena in the Belgian market. After a short time, though, the airline also worked with Sabena: from October 1996, under an agreement, Virgin Express flew the Sabena connection between Brussels and London Heathrow, and in 1997 further routes such as Barcelona followed the same pattern. After the end of Sabena, the game repeated with SN Brussels Airlines – first a competitor, finally a merger partner.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code TV: appeared in the flight number, on tickets and on departure boards.
• ICAO code VEX: used by air traffic control in the flight plan.
• Callsign VIRGIN EXPRESS: this is how the crew identified itself on the radio.

For the period before, you need different codes. EuroBelgian Airlines flew with the IATA code BQ, the ICAO code EBA and the callsign “BELSTAR”. If you come across BQ or BELSTAR in an old logbook, the same company is meant – just before the Virgin era. How callsigns come about and why some sound so quirky is explained in the piece on airline callsigns and their history.

The business model: cheap flights from Brussels

Virgin Express belonged to the first generation of European low-cost airlines, roughly at the same time as the rise of Ryanair and easyJet. The basic ingredients were the same: a single aircraft type, simple service on board and a distribution model that relied heavily on the internet. How this model works in detail is explained in the piece how low-cost carriers work.

One important difference from Ryanair and easyJet: Virgin Express had practically only one base, Brussels Airport. The airline did not spread its aircraft over many bases in Europe but flew in a star pattern from Zaventem. That put it right next to Sabena and later SN Brussels Airlines at the same airport – competition and cooperation were correspondingly close together.

The destinations were mainly in the Mediterranean. Typical were cities like Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Málaga, Faro or Nice. There were also connections to the north, such as Copenhagen, Stockholm and Gothenburg.

The Virgin Express fleet

The fleet made Virgin Express a typical 737 airline of the 1990s. Almost all aircraft belonged to the second generation of the Boeing 737, the so-called Classic family. The manufacturer was Boeing.

Type	Number over the years	In service	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-300	15	1996–2007	Shorter Classic version, already in service at EBA
Boeing 737-400	11	1996–2007	Longer fuselage, more seats
Boeing 737-200	2	1997	Briefly leased, slim engines
Airbus A320	1	1997	Briefly leased
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar	1	1998	Briefly leased, three engines
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30	1	1998	For summer charters

In early 2007, shortly before the transition to Brussels Airlines, the fleet still consisted of ten aircraft: five 737-300s and five 737-400s. The leased oddballs such as the TriStar and DC-10 were only brief guest appearances – photos of them in Virgin Express service are correspondingly rare and especially appealing for collectors.

French-language reference works mention a technical peculiarity: around 2005, the 737-300 registered OO-VEX received retrofitted winglets, and according to them three 737-300s in total were equipped this way. That was rare on the 737 Classic. How to tell the different wingtips apart is shown in the guide to winglets, sharklets and more.

737-300 or 737-400? How to tell them apart

On old photos, the two Classic versions look very similar: same livery, flattened-bottom engine inlets, same cockpit windows. The most important difference is the length.

The surest method is to count the overwing exits: one on the 737-300, two on the 737-400. The flat underside of the engine inlets at the same time separates both Classic versions from the older 737-200 with its slim, long engines. The guide telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart gives an overview of all generations.

How to recognize Virgin Express

The livery followed the Virgin style: lots of red, plus the Virgin logo in script and the “Virgin Express” titles on the fuselage. That set the airline clearly apart from Sabena’s more understated look. The registrations were Belgian and began with OO-; well-known examples are OO-VEN and OO-VEX.

At the same time, caution is advised: you also find the red color and the Virgin logo at other airlines of the Virgin family. A British long-haul aircraft from Virgin Atlantic, however, is usually a widebody – a red 737 in Brussels with an OO- registration clearly points to Virgin Express instead.

In the months around the merger, some aircraft wore hybrids of old and new elements. Such transition liveries are a collecting field of their own – how to recognize them is explained in the piece on hybrid and mixed liveries, and why airlines change their look at all is covered under when airlines change their design.

The road to Brussels Airlines

The end of Virgin Express was not a bankruptcy but an orderly transition. After the bankruptcy of Sabena in November 2001, there was room for a fresh start at Brussels Airport. The new SN Brussels Airlines flew from February 2002 mainly with regional jets, Virgin Express with 737s – and both shared the same home airport.

Because the announcement, the unveiling of the name and the start of operations are spread over more than a year, you find both 2006 and 2007 as the end of Virgin Express in sources. For your archive, March 25, 2007, is the more practical cutoff date: photos before it usually still show the Virgin brand.

The 737s from the Virgin Express fleet continued flying for Brussels Airlines afterward. Only at the end of 2012 did Brussels Airlines retire the last 737-300s and -400s and switch to Airbus. Today Brussels Airlines belongs entirely to the Lufthansa Group – so a piece of Virgin Express history is indirectly inside the Lufthansa group, too.

Belgium’s airline landscape around Virgin Express

Virgin Express was not the only Belgian airline of those years that is history today. Besides the big Sabena, there was its charter subsidiary Sobelair, which flew until 2004, and the regional airline VLM Airlines, based in Antwerp. In leisure traffic, TUI fly Belgium is a fixture today.

If you click through old Brussels photos from the late 1990s, you therefore find a colorful mix: Sabena long-haul, Sobelair charter, regional jets and, in between, the red Virgin 737s. It is precisely this variety that makes the archive from that time so interesting.

Virgin Express in a spotter’s everyday life today

For your logbook, Virgin Express is an archive topic. If you photographed in Brussels or at a Mediterranean airport between 1996 and 2007, it’s worth looking through old folders or slides. Type, registration, location and date turn a memory snapshot into a clean entry – and via the registration you find out where the aircraft was flying before and after.

You can still visit the place where the history happened. At Brussels Airport, the Steenokkerzeel spotter zone is an official spotting area where the traffic of the successor, Brussels Airlines, passes by today.

Common mix-ups

• Treating Virgin Express and Virgin Atlantic as the same – both belonged to the Virgin Group but were separate airlines with a completely different area of operation.
• Seeing EuroBelgian and Virgin Express as two companies – it was the same company, just before and after the takeover by Virgin.
• Thinking Virgin Express went bust – the airline was sold and merged with SN Brussels Airlines.
• Confusing the 737-300 and 737-400 – count the overwing exits: one or two.
• Dating the end to 2006 across the board – the merger was announced in 2006, but the airline flew under the new name from March 2007.
• Assuming every Virgin Express aircraft was Belgian – the offshoots in France and Ireland used other registrations.

Conclusion

Virgin Express was Belgium’s budget airline of the Virgin era: born out of a charter airline, flying red Boeing 737s from Brussels to the south and in the end a building block of Brussels Airlines. For spotters, it is a small but rewarding archive chapter – with a manageable fleet, clear codes and aircraft whose careers are easy to trace via the registration.