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
Galileo GDS Worldspan and Galileo were created by other airline groups in an attempt to gain market share in the computer reservation system market and, by inference, the commercial airline market. Galileo was formed in 1987 by nine European carriers -- British Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Alitalia, Swissair, Austrian Airlines, Olympic, Sabena, Air Portugal and Aer Lingus. In response and to prevent possible government intervention, United Airlines spun off its Apollo reservation system, which was then controlled by Covia. Galileo International was born when Covia acquired Europe's Galileo and merged it with the Apollo system in 1992. The Apollo reservation system