Sabena airliners which were augmented and later replaced by Douglas DC-6Bs. The DC-4s also restarted the airline's traditional route to the Belgian Congo. Sabena was the first airline to introduce transatlantic schedules from the north of England, when one of its DC-6Bs inaugurated the Brussels-Manchester-New York route on 28 October 1953. The Convair 240 was introduced in 1949 to partially replace the DC-3s that until then had flown most European services. As of 1956, improved Convair 440 "Metropolitan" twins began replacing the Convair 240 twins and were used successfully well into the 1960s between European regional destinations. In 1957, the long-range
Gadair European Airlines Gadair European Airlines Gadair European Airlines was an airline based in Madrid, Spain. It was operating aircraft on ACMI leases for services to five continents. A number of changes of plan have been made, including a switch to Bahrain as the main hub. The airline originally planned to launch operations on 10 April 2006 using Boeing 767-200ER aircraft on ACMI leases, but delays in obtaining the necessary licences mean that the launch date was delayed to June 2007. The airline was owned by Grupo AISA and Santiago Sanchez Marin. In 2007 new shareholders entered in a capital increase, that resulted