DAT Flies

RE: Only Avro’s

I hope someone Belgian starts up America flights sometime in the near future – either VLM or DAT would be fine. Would hate to be roped into flying long haul with Air France.
Fly with proper Belgian airlines.:-)

RE: Only Avro’s

Yes buy i can certify I saw an A340 in the landing pattern of Bierset Satuday. So, there’s hope 🙂 🙂 🙂

Only Avro’s

As far as I know, DAT is only operating the Avro’s at this moment. Maybe it will change after the contract with the Flemmisch government. The A-330/340’s will probably be the first ex-Sabena airbusses that will be operated by DAT, to fly intercontinental to Kinshasa (Congo). The flights to Africa are very important for DAT, especially now Air France is thinking of starting its own routes to Congo. I don’t know if they’re going to use the A-330 or A-340 for this.

RE: DAT Flies

Yesterday, I daw an ex Sabena A340 flying low over Liège (I presume it was doing Touch and Goes at Bierset Airport, as it was usually the case at least once a week before Sabena bankrupcy)

Maybe they’ll start intercontinental flights soon?

Has anybody more infos about that?

RE: DAT Flies

NCL-BRU is served by DAT and British European, both on 3 Daily frequency and on Bae146-200/RJ85/RJ100 a/c.

RE: DAT Flies

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 26-11-01 AT 01:15 PM (GMT)]Hi Geforce!!The DAT flights to LHR have stopped over the weekend, it is now code-shared with Virgin Express, which is a big shame, it would have been great to see DAT flying in on their own, with their own planes and getting all the money from it. Are DAT still just using Avro RJs/BAe 146 or have they used some of SABENA’s old Airbuses and things? I think the capacity of the Avros and 146s is too small to rely on totally.
Glad to hear that DAT are taking Virgin’s profits, and I think Citybird could have been rescued if Thomas Cook could have put forward a decent plan for them (the first thing would have been a repaint from that strange – but unusual – green livery) Saw one taxying round at BRU in September, first and last one I saw of theirs, wish I’d have got it on video like the SN A340 (super, super plane it suited that dark blue livery perfectly).
Good to hear that those dreadful cheap airlines don’t have much clout in Belgium – some UK airports (Liverpool, Luton and Stansted) are full of them. They are so hideously cheap they must be cutting back on something somewhere (fuel for one is expensive, then slots, maintenance, wages etc) I wouldn’t have any faith in them.

RE: DAT Flies

No, because Thomas Cook was really considering to buy stocks from Citybird in the first place, so they must have seen in future in this company.

RE: DAT Flies

Why should Thomas Cook buy Citybird? By doing that, Thomas Cook would inherit Citybird’s debts, and would risk the rest of teh company going bankrupt. Makes more (business) sense to start a new company.

Only drawback is thaose godawful JMC colours. Bring back B-CAL!

RE: DAT Flies

Hi Comet

Don’t know anything about those codes, sorry. I do know that the codes SN will disappear sooner or later. The credibility of Ryanair and Easyjet ain’t big here, so I hope BIAC (operater of Brussels Airport) won’t sell all of its slots to Easyjet and wait untill we here more about new domestic airlines such as DAT and new VLM.

New update.

One of the main VLM and virgin-stockholders (the one who wants to introduce flights to the west coast USA) is going to sue DAT because virgin is losing profits thanks to DAT.

Citybird is also going to sue Thomas Cook. Thomas Cook decided to introduce a new charter in Belgium, about the same size as Citybird. My question? Why didn’t they buy Citybird before its banckrupty?
Thomas Cook already made an agreement with Citybird, but after the 11th sept, they said they couldn’t guarantee that they would proceed buying Citybird stocks. Now as they are banckrupt, Citybird wants to get money from Thomas Cook to pay all of its employees (much like the Belgian government did with Sabena)

RE: DAT Flies

Oh no, not Easy Jet!!! I cannot even stand to think about them. They operate out of the most second rate airports in the UK and they were the subject of the worst “fly on the wall” documentary I’ve ever seen in my life – enough to put you off flying with them, certainly. Is DAT’s code going to stay at QG? We have flights listed in the UK as both QG and SN. Personally, I prefer SN.:-)

RE: DAT Flies

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 21-11-01 AT 07:15 PM (GMT)]Yeah great news about VLM flying transatlantic. Maybe there’s a big potential market on the west-coast of the USA.

Frank, I can’t agree more with you. Did you know that most of us belgians don’t give a damn about all this communotary crap? It’s just something that the “Vlaams Blok” and other extreme organisations here in Flanders use to promote their ideas. Still, it’s important that we both have our own governments, because there are big cultural differences between Flemmisch and Walloons. But it’s just a matter of years before we we’ll all be integrated in one big Europe, and than who will still care about such idiotic issues …

Some updates from the sabena frontline which won’t make to the international papers, but which might be interresting …

Sabena-technics (which is not banckrupt) is firing 700 employees since Sabena NV/SA (their biggest costumer, 40 % of profits) can’t provide new work for them.

Citybird, the other belgian airliner which has been declared banckrupt, wants to have the same social plan as the sabena employees. Impossible, since sabena was a public enterprise.

Easyjet is planning to organise flights to and from Brussels-Zaventem to some other major European cities.

Thomas Cook, the biggest belgian-german travelagency (partially responsable for Citybird’s failure), is discouraging their clients to fly with DAT. According to them, the future of DAT is too uncertain, but they do want to support them.

KLM is starting commercials on public and private tv-stations in Flanders. They probably want to get some of Sabena’s clients.

The Belgian parliament is questionning the responsability of our government in the sabena-case. There is a commission which has to investigate the responsability of the gov. Verhofstadt, but also of all gov. since 1960 … and yes even our beloved king will have to explain something.

The Belgian government is very precautious about such new incidents. The biggest public entreprise, our postal service (the post), wants to cut more jobs. Flemmisch liberals and Walloon socialists (both parties of our federal gov) are argueing about the future of our ‘post’. They don’t want another sabena-chapter, but this new problem could mean the split-up of our government and pre-elections if necessairy.

RE: DAT Flies

DAT are back in MAN as from today. Their 9am landing was 50 minutes early. Flights from BRU did well over the weekend, nearly all were about half an hour early. This is great for everyone in the north of England who used to fly with SABENA.:-)

RE: DAT Flies

The sooner would be around April 2002, but the first thing would be to find inversors to buy the two Airbuses needed (ex-Sabena). Because the curators refuse’ to hire them, they are only willing to sell them.

RE: DAT Flies

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 19-11-01 AT 01:20 PM (GMT)]Great that VLM is considering long haul, they seem to be quite “resourceful”, they did not cancel their LCY flights when the airport was closed, they flew somewhere else and bussed passengers to London, so they seem to be quite well-run and certainly they are fast movers (LCY-BRU within 2 days of SABENA going). Flights to LAX would be wonderful from my point of view, I was planning to go there again sometime when I finish university but at that time I was planning SABENA Manchester-Brussels-Chicago-LA, a direct flight to LA would be much better than all the changes (except for one in BRU). I hope this plan comes off.:-)

RE: DAT Flies

There’s no offense, at least for me… I’m one of those who are Belgians, not Flemish, Walloon, or whatever… To be exact, I hate this “communautary” crap. But, some people here don’t think like me, and then, we hear about it at least during 20 minuts everyday on TV news (not bad, counting that the news’ duration is 30 minutes..) 😉

Other great news: the boss of VLM talks about the creation of a belgian intercontinental carrier (Belgium – LAX and SFA) in the newt few months. If DAT doesn’t lane JFK, he would also go for it, but he refuses to make concurrency to DAT. The planes would be ex-SABENA ones.

RE: DAT Flies

Sorry Frank, I didn’t mean any offence there. For English names what about Belgian Airways? Or Royal Belgian Airlines? As long as the name “Virgin” is not in the list, any would be good.:-)

RE: DAT Flies

Air Belgium existed, it’s now out of business.

Well, IMHO, using a french or flemish acronym would cause problems! (Languages is a “sensible” tobic here in Belgium 😉 ) The best would be English. So, everybody would agree!

regards,

Frank

RE: Merger with Virgin Express

They are empty mainly because no tickets could be sold, but I think the situation will change soon. And yes, they will probably do code sharing, but maybe with different service onboard.

RE: DAT Flies

Hasn’t there already been an Air Belgium? In the air routes videos in the online shop it mentions a video of an Air Belgium A320. If that airline has gone, and they are going to use the name of an airline which doesn’t exist any more, then why not just stick with the name Sabena? DAT is a horrid name, DAT Plus is just stupid. Seeing as SABENA was formed from the initials of French words, couldn’t the new airline have a Flemish-type name?

RE: Merger with Virgin Express

Who is doing the LHR-BRU flight?? Both Virgin Express and DAT have listings – is VE doing all the flights and code-sharing with DAT, or does DAT fly in on its own? I don’t want to book a LHR to BRU flight hoping to fly with DAT, only to be lumbered with those dreadful red aircraft with no on-board service (I had enough of that sort of thing on Air New Zealand). DAT are flying into Newcastle and Birmingham, the Manchester ones are still listed as cancelled and British Midland have jumped into the Leeds slots, which is a pain because Leeds is my nearest airport, though I am prepared to travel any distance to fly with a proper airline. If DAT flights to the UK are empty, that is something unusual, because SABENA’s used to be full.