SNETA 7 of SNETA's 23 airplanes. By 1 June 1922, enough information was gathered and all experimental flights were suspended. This cleared the way to start up a real Belgian commercial operator, SABENA, which came into being on 23 May 1923 and into which SNETA merged. SNETA The Syndicat national d'Etude des Transports Aériens ("National Union of Study of Aerial Transport"), known by its acronym SNETA, was a Belgian airline which operated from 1919 to 1923 in order to pioneer commercial aviation in Belgium. In 1923 it ceased operations and merged into the newly founded national carrier SABENA. The company was
Sabena Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the Hôtel des Mille Collines of Kigali, saving them from being slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide (this is depicted in the motion picture "Hotel Rwanda"). In March and April 1998 two McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 aircraft, both leased from CityBird, joined the fleet and such long-haul destinations as Newark, Montreal and São Paulo were (re)introduced. 1999 saw new colours introduced to the fleet, beginning with an Airbus A340. One of the latest fleet types that Sabena introduced, right after the A321 and A320 was the A319 which saw service in 2000. These new