Spike and Suzy and Suzy happen in real countries all over the world, with Belgium (their home country) as main focus for many stories. While in the early stories large distances were usually traveled using the fictitious "Gyronef", an experimental helicopter devised by professor Barabas, starting from the 1960s all air travel is provided by the Dutch national airline KLM, making it an early and prominent example of product placement in European comics. Vandersteen chose KLM over the Belgian national airline SABENA because of his friendship with Ron Winderink, PR manager at KLM. Willy Vandersteen created "Suske en Wiske", beginning publication in "De
Alcazar (airline) Sabena. In addition, they had a strong tie with Northwest Airlines. In 1989, KLM bought 20 percent of the then ailing airline. In 1992, KLM had made a bailout purchase of Northwest, securing a 25 percent ownership of the airline, which is the maximum a foreign airline is allowed to own in a US airline. Swissair cooperated with Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines in a triangular cooperation, which was highly valued by the company's management. Delta was significantly larger than the other two US partner airlines, and had a base in New York City, rather than Northwest's hubs in