Ex-Sabena workers reach for the skies once more

3 December 2004
 
BRUSSELS — Former employees of defunct Belgian flagship airline Sabena hope to have a new carrier up and running before the end of the year.
 
The initiative comes from the 1,486-member Belgian Employees Aviation Promotion, founded in 2002 a few months after Sabena went bankrupt.
 
On its official website, www.beap.be, the group announced the new carrier should be able to offer flights out of Zaventum airport, outside Brussels, before year’s end.
 
The airline’s owner will be Beap Holding SA, the holding company created by the employees’ group in February 2002. The group did not disclose the name of the new carrier.
 
The group said it hopes that every Belgian citizen will recognise the association’s “incredible determination” to prolong a heritage that is “necessary to maintain at all costs.”
 
SN Brussels, the successor to Sabena, is owned by private investors including Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis and Tractebel SA, Belgium’s largest electricity provider.
 
Last autumn SN Brussels sealed a deal to merge with Sir Richard Branson’s low-cost carrier Virgin Express.
 
[Copyright Expatica 2004]

 
Subject: Belgian news