Sabena (Belgian Airlines System)

Société Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne

Last modified: 2004-12-22 by ivan sache
Keywords: sabena | airline | star (yellow) | cross: saltire (white) | airplane (white) |
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by Mark Sensen

• History of SABENA
• Flag of SABENA
  • Variant of the flag of SABENA
• Old flag of SABENA
  • After 1963
  • Before 1963
  • Reports of the flag with swapped red and black triangles

See also:

• Belgium

History of SABENA

Sabena was founded on 23 May 1923, and opened its first scheduled service between Brussels and Strasbourg (France) in 1924. Scheduled services were further opened to London, Paris and Amsterdam.
The first successful flight between Brussels and Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) occurred in 1925, and a scheduled service between these two cities opened in 1938 (56 hours of flight).
In 1947, the first transatlantic service to New York was opened.
In 1953, SABENA was the first airline in the world to launch an helicopter scheduled service, between Brussels and the European capitals.

In 1964, SABENA carried for the first time more than 1,000,000 passengers in a year.
In 1969, a scheduled service to Tokyo was opened. Then followed scheduled services to Montevideo and Santiago (1974).

Due to increasing financial problems, SABENA signed a partnership agreement with Air France in 1992. Air France withdrew in 1994.

In 1995, SABENA signed a partnership agreement with Swissair, which took a 49.5% equity holding.
In 1998, SABENA was among the founding members of the Qualiflyer group, created by Swissair. Swissair increased its equity holding to 85%.

In 1999, SABENA carried for the first time more than 10,000,000 passengers in a year and served 165,000 flights (83.1% in Europe, 6;6% to Africa, and 9.2% transatlantic).

In April 2001, the fleet included 12 long-haul aircrafts and 66 median-haul aircrafts. SABENA has 11,000 employees and 1,500 more in outstations.

SABENA was liquidated on 6 November 2001 after 78 years of existence.

Source: SABENA website

Ivan Sache, 13 March 2004

Flag of SABENA

In 1973, SABENA adopted its current logo, a stretched blue S on white, which was put on a blue field.

Variant of the flag of SABENA

by Mark Sensen

A variant shows a white airplane in the upper right corner and the words 'belgian world airlines' in white below the emblem.

Mark Sensen, 12 July 2001

Old flags of SA