Brussels Airlines Brussels Airlines Brussels Airlines (stylized as brussels airlines) is the flag carrier and largest airline of Belgium, based and headquartered at Brussels Airport. It operates to over 120 destinations in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia and also offers charter services, maintenance and crew training (as of 2007). The airline is a member of the Star Alliance as well as the International Air Transport Association. The airline's IATA code "SN" is inherited from its predecessors, Sabena and SN Brussels Airlines. Lufthansa purchased 45% of the company in 2009, and on September 29, 2016, Lufthansa announced it would purchase the remainder
Sabena from Seaboard World Airlines, using them mainly on transatlantic routes. In the same period, there were experiments with helicopter passenger service using Sikorsky S-58 aircraft from Brussels to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and the Paris heliport at Issy-les-Moulineaux. 1960 saw the introduction of the Boeing 707-320 intercontinental jet for trans-Atlantic flights to New York. SABENA was mainland Europe's first airline to operate a jet across the Atlantic (BOAC had been flying jet transatlantic services using the de Havilland Comet 4 since 4 October 1958). One of Sabena's aircraft became the first Boeing 707 to crash while in commercial service when Flight