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
European Coastal Airlines European Coastal Airlines European Coastal Airlines was a Croatian seaplane operator headquartered in Split. Founded in 2000, the company launched scheduled services in August 2014 and served domestic flights within Croatia as well as services to nearby Italy. The company was established in September 2000, by the Croatian company Obalna Kapitalna Ulaganja d.o.o. from Zagreb, Croatia, and European SeaPlane Service (ESPS) GmbH, from Landsberied, Germany. The airline flew promotional flights using a restored vintage Grumman Goose in 2000. The "Slobodna Dalmacija" daily reported in August 2002 that the company had acquired licences to land at 25 destinations around the Croatian