Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're doing
something a little bit different. We are, yeah.
Usually we look at a specific technology, maybe
a philosophy or a recent trend. But today we
are looking at what I can only describe as a
national trauma. That is not an overstatement
at all. We are unpacking the story of Sabina.
And on the surface, sure, it's a story about
an airline. It's about planes, routes, jet engines.
Right. But when you actually peel back the layers
of the research you've brought today, this isn't
really about aviation, is it? It's about colonial
ambition. It's about the brutal reality of geopolitics.
And it's about one of the most spectacular corporate
suicides in European history. It really is the
rise and fall of a country's ego in a way. It
is. You have this entity that operated for 78
years. It was a symbol of Belgium. The flag carrier.
Absolutely. It linked the tiny motherland to
this massive colony in Africa. It survived World
War II. It flew the first jets across the Atlantic.
And then in 2001, it didn't just go bankrupt.
It imploded. And I think for a lot of people,
especially if you aren't Belgian, Sabina is just
a name from the past, a logo you might remember
seeing in an old movie or something. Or a bit
of retro nostalgia. Exactly. But the scale of
this collapse, it shook the aviation world. It
left thousands jobless and essentially erased
a national icon overnight. But to understand
why the crash was so loud, we have to understand
just how high they climbed. Well, let's start
with the name itself, because Sabina sounds pleasant
enough. It's got a nice ring to it. It does.
But I was looking at the notes and it's an acronym
and not a cute. marketing -friendly acronym either.
No, it is extremely bureaucratic. It stands for
Société Anonyme Belge d 'Exploitation de la Navigation
Aérienne. Which translates to? The Belgian Corporation
for the Exploitation of Aerial Navigation. Exploitation
of Aerial Navigation. Yeah. It sounds like something
a villain in a steampunk novel would run. It's
very 1923, isn't it? It reflects the mindset
of the time. I mean, the air wasn't just a place
to travel through. It was a resource to be mastered,
to be exploited. It was industrial. And you have
to remember, in 1923, aviation was barely 20
years old. The Wright brothers were still alive.
So paint the picture for us. 1923, Belgium. Why
does a country the size of a postage stamp, and
no offense to Belgium, but you can drive across
it in a couple of hours, why do they need a corporation
for the exploitation of aerial navigation? That
is the million dollar question. I mean, if you
look at a map of Europe, a domestic airline for
Belgium makes zero sense. You just take a train.
You take a train. But Sabina wasn't created to
fly Belgians from Brussels to Antwerp. It was
created because of what was happening thousands
of miles south. The Congo. Exactly. The Belgian
Congo. The colony. You cannot separate the history
of Sabina from the history of colonialism. The
airline was arguably created for the colony.
So before Sabina, there was an attempt, right?
Sneda. Right. Sneda. National Syndicate for the
Study of Aerial Transports. Another kitschy name.
Oh, yeah. SNETA was the beta test. They spent
a few years, you know, crashing planes and figuring
out if this whole flying thing was commercially
viable. And when they folded? When they folded,
the Belgian government and some private investors,
specifically the different families, said, OK,
we need to make this permanent. But again, this
wasn't just about prestige or having a cool new
airline. There was a specific group of people
demanding this. The colonists. There were Belgians
living and working in the Congo who felt completely
cut off. Right. They had briefly had a local
air service called LRA, but it went bust. So
you had this immense pressure from the colonial
elite saying, we need a lifeline. We need to
move mail, diamonds, gold, and people faster
than a river barge. So Sabine is born in 1923.
They do the obligatory first hop to London, I
assume. Of course. July 1st, 1923, Brussels to
London via Ostend. Then they add Rotterdam, Strasbourg,
Hamburg. The usual suspects. The usual suspects,
yeah. But these were sight shows. The mission,
with a capital M, the absolute obsession of the
company, was to link Brussels to Leopoldville,
what is now Kinshasa. Okay, I want to pause here.
Because today, Brussels to Kinshasa is what?
Eight hours? Maybe nine? About eight hours on
an Airbus A330. You watch two movies, eat a mediocre
meal, and you're there. Right. In 1925, when
they decided to try this for the first time.
Yeah. It wasn't eight hours. No, it was 51 days.
51 days. Yes. Sorry, what? If I tell my boss,
hey, I'm going on a business trip, I'll see you
in two months, I'm getting fired. How is 51 days
a success? Well, you have to look at the alternative.
The alternative was a sea voyage that took weeks,
followed by a river journey that took more weeks.
Okay, fair enough. But the 51 days wasn't the
flight time. It was the adventure time. This
was Edmund Thiefrey, a World War I ace, along
with a pilot named Leopold Roger and a mechanic,
Joseph DeBricker. They took off in a Handley
Page W -8. A biplane. A biplane made of wood
and fabric. And they weren't just flying. They
were battling the planet. They had mechanical
failures constantly. They had to wait for parts
to be shipped by train or by boat to wherever
they were stuck. They got bogged down in mud.
They navigated by looking at rivers and hoping
the map was right. It sounds less like an airline
route and more like the Lewis and Clark expedition.
That's a great analogy. That's exactly what it
was. When they finally landed in Leopoldville,
they were national heroes. But to your point,
no, you couldn't run a scheduled service taking
51 days. So it was a proof of concept. It proved
it was physically possible. So how do you turn
that stunt into a business? You build. And this
is the part of the story that often gets glazed
over. The African imperative. Between 1923 and
1926, Sabina oversaw a massive construction program
in the Congo. They cleared jungle to build aerodromes.
And when you say they cleared jungle, I'm picturing
something pretty grim. I mean, you have to assume
they used forced labor or at least very low paid
colonial labor to hack runways out of the dense
forest. This was brutal, dangerous work. They
built a network connecting Boma, Leopoldville
and Elizabethville. That's a 2288 kilometer route
over territory that if you crash, you are likely
never coming out of. So for a while, Sabina is
essentially. Two different airlines. Precisely.
You have the European division flying dignitaries
to London for tea. Very civilized. And then you
have the African division where planes were shipped
in crates by sea, assembled at the docks in Boma,
and then flown over the jungle. And the two networks
didn't even connect. They didn't touch for years.
It's like having a subway system in New York
and a bus system in Hong Kong and calling it
the same transit authority. That is wild. Until
1935. That's the golden spike moment. The technology
finally caught up. They introduced the Fokker
F7. The trimotor. The famous trimotor. It could
fly relatively long distances reliably. So they
launched the first regular scheduled passenger
service between Brussels and the Congo. And what
was the travel time now? We're down from 51 days?
Five and a half days. Okay. It's a quantum leap.
I mean, it's a game changer. And then just a
year later in 1936, they get the Savoia Marchetti
SM .73. Italian planes. Yeah. Fast Italian planes.
Basically converted bombers. And they cut the
trip down to four days. Four days. I'm just trying
to imagine the passenger experience. You're in
a noisy, unpressurized metal tube for four days.
It was an endurance sport. It really was. You
flew during the day. You landed at these colonial
outposts at night to sleep in hotels, often Sabina
-owned hotels, by the way. Of course. Vertical
integration. Exactly. You'd shower, have a gin
and tonic, sleep under a mosquito net, and then
get back in the plane at dawn. It was exclusive.
It was expensive. And it was exhausting. But
it worked. They were the umbilical cord of the
empire. They were. By the late 1930s, Sabina
was one of the most important airlines in the
world purely because of its route length. But
then, obviously, 1940 rolls around. And the Nazis
invade Belgium. Game over for the European network.
But, and this is key, the African network kept
running. Oh, really? Yes. The planes in the Congo
were used by the Allies. They kept the supply
lines open. So while the company in Brussels
was dormant under occupation, the heart of the
airline was still beating in the tropics. So
the war ends, 1945. Belgium is liberated. And
aviation has changed completely. Completely.
The war accelerated aviation technology by two
decades. Suddenly you have concrete runways everywhere.
You have radar. And most importantly, you have
surplus American aircraft. The Douglas DC -4s
and DC -3s. Thousands of them. Cheap, reliable
and available. And Sabina grabs them. They rebrand.
The name becomes Sabina Belgian World Airlines.
They want everyone to know they are back and
they are thinking big. And in June 1946, they
launched their first route to New York City.
Using the DC -4. Yep. Now, correct me if I'm
wrong, the DC -4 is unpressurized. It is, very
much so. So they are flying across the North
Atlantic. For roughly 18 to 20 hours with a stop
in Gander or Shannon. In an unpressurized tube.
Which means they can't fly over the weather.
If there's a storm at 10 ,000 feet, you are in
the storm. Very. And if it's freezing outside,
it's cold inside, it was loud, those piston engines
are deafening compared to modern jets. But for
the first time, you could buy a ticket in Brussels
and wake up in New York the next day. It's the
start of modern globalization, really. But I
want to talk about the dangers here, because
looking at the timeline, the 1950s for Sabina
wasn't just about commercial growth. It was about
dodging bullets, literally. But the Cold War.
Yeah. You have to remember, geographically, flying
from Western Europe to the Balkans or the Middle
East meant skirting the Iron Curtain. Tell me
about the 1954 incident, because this reads like
something out of a Tom Clancy novel. It's incredible.
June 3rd, 1954. A Sabina DC -3 is flying a cargo
run from the UK to Yugoslavia. Okay. And it's
carrying breeding pigs, of all things. Pigs?
Pigs. High -value livestock. They're flying near
the Yugoslav -Austrian border. Now, navigation
back then wasn't GPS perfect. Maybe they drifted,
maybe they didn't. But a Soviet MiG -15 fighter
jet intercepts them. And usually an intercept
means, tip your wings, follow me to the airport.
Usually. But this pilot wasn't in the mood for
chatting. The MiG opens fire with heavy cannons.
On a cargo plane full of pigs. Yes, it just shreds
the cockpit. The radio operator is killed instantly.
Oh my god. The captain and the engineer are both
wounded. The plane starts diving out of control.
So who is flying the plane? The co -pilot, a
guy named Douglas Wilson, and the wounded captain
manage to regain some control. The hydraulics
are shot out, the electricals are dead, they
are bleeding, and somehow... They managed to
crash land this thing in a field in Austria.
That is insane. It was a massive diplomatic incident.
But it showed that Sabina was operating on the
jagged edge of the world. They weren't just a
business. They were a flag carrier in a very,
very dangerous time. And yet, amidst all this
danger, they were being incredibly innovative.
I was surprised to read about the helicopter
network. Because when I think of airlines, I
do not think of scheduled helicopter service.
Oh, this is the coolest part of their history,
I think. For the 1958 World Expo in Brussels,
the one that gave us the Atomium Sabina decided
they wanted to be the airline of the future.
Right. A big marketing moment. Huge. So they
bought a fleet of Sikorsky S -58 helicopters.
These are the big ones with the piston engine
in the nose. The ones you see in MRH. Exactly.
Loud, rattling beasts. And they set up a scheduled
network. You could fly from downtown Brussels
to downtown Paris. Not the airports. The city
centers. Wait, wait. So I could walk out of a
meeting in Brussels, hop in a helicopter, and
land near the Eiffel Tower. That was the idea,
yes. They flew to the heliport at Issylum, Illinois.
in Paris. They also flew to Antwerp, Rotterdam,
Eindhoven, Duisburg. It was the only international
helicopter airline network in the world. Why
don't we have this now? That sounds amazing.
It was amazing. It was also phenomenally expensive.
Helicopters guzzle fuel. They carry very few
people, maybe 12 passengers. And they are maintenance
nightmares. Sabina lost money on every single
flight. But as a marketing tool. It was genius.
It made them look like the most advanced airline
in Europe. Very Jetsons. It is very Jetsons.
And it set them up perfectly for the actual jet
age. Yeah. 1960, the Boeing 707 arrives. The
plane that changed the world. It really did.
And Sabina was the first airline in mainland
Europe to fly a jet across the Atlantic. They
beat Air France. They beat Lufthansa. They were
incredibly proud of this. But the jet age has
a dark side. As we know, speed kills. It does,
and Sabina learned this in the most horrific
way possible. February 15th, 1961, Sabina Flight
548. This is the crash that everyone in the figure
skating world knows. Yes. A brand new Boeing
707 on approach to Brussels airport. For some
reason, it doesn't go around. It circles and
then suddenly it banks hard almost 90 degrees
and slams into the ground in a field. And the
passenger list. The passenger list was just devastating.
It was the entire United States figure skating
team. The coaches, the skaters, the family members.
They were on their way to the world championships
in Prague. Everyone on board. Everyone. 73 people
on the plane. plus one person on the ground,
everyone died. Did they ever find out why it
happened? Not definitively. The investigation
pointed towards a mechanical failure in the tail
stabilizer, but it was never 100 % conclusive.
But for Sabina, the timing was just awful. I
could imagine. They had just launched this new
era of speed and luxury, and suddenly they're
the face of one of the worst aviation disasters
of the decade. And this brings us to the pivotal
moment. Because the year 1960 wasn't just about
jets. It was about the very reason for Sabina's
existence. Independence. The Congo becomes independent.
June 30, 1960. The Belgian colony becomes the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. And almost
immediately, chaos erupts. The Congo crisis.
And for Sabina, this isn't just a political headline.
This is their entire business model collapsing.
It's worse than that. It's an operational nightmare.
The Belgian government commandeers the entire
long -haul fleet. They stop selling tickets.
They turn the airline into a refugee evacuation
service. To get the Belgian nationals out. Yes.
They airlifted something like 35 ,000 people
in a matter of weeks. They were cramming people
into the aisles of these new Boeing 707s. It
was an incredible logistical feat. But commercially.
Commercially, it destroyed them. Because once
the airlift is over. Once it's over, the monopoly
is gone. The new Congolese government creates
its own airline, Air Congo. Sabina is allowed
to help manage it, but they only get a 30 percent
state. The African imperative that justified
the airline size for 40 years just evaporated.
So now you have a large airline with a large
fleet. based in a small country with no massive
lucrative colony to subsidize. Exactly. This
is the beginning of what I would call the identity
crisis era. From 1960 to 1990, Sabina is basically
a zombie. It's walking, it's flying, but financially...
It's dead. But the government kept it alive.
Oh, constantly. The Belgian state pumped money
into it year after year. Because you have to
understand, a national airline in the 20th century
was like a national flag. You couldn't just let
it die. It was a matter of pride. So they modernized.
They bought the Boeing 727s in the 60s. Beautiful
planes. They had that distinctive bare metal
rudder that looked so sleek. And then in the
70s, they bought the jumbo jet. The 747. Two
of them. And in a very Belgian, very cozy way,
they named the first one Tante Agathe. Aunt Agathe.
See, that's charming. I'm flying to New York
on Aunt Agathe. Yeah. But... Does a country the
size of Belgium really need a 747? Probably not.
I mean, the 747 is a plane designed for massive
volume, high capacity between huge hubs like
London and New York. Sabina really struggled
to fill it. So it was a status symbol. It was
pure status. Look, we are a big boy airline.
We have a jumbo. But the economics were brutal.
The oil crises of the 70s hit them incredibly
hard. So we get to the 1990s. The world is changing
again. The European Union is getting serious
about competition laws. And state aid becomes
a dirty word. This is the turning point. The
Belgian government can no longer just write a
check every year to cover the losses. The EU
says no more. Sabina has to stand on its own
two feet. Sabina looks in the mirror and realizes.
We're too small. They were in what consultants
call the dead zone. They weren't a global giant
like British Airways or Lufthansa. And they weren't
a low -cost niche carrier like the emerging Ryanair.
Stuck in the middle. A mid -sized, high -cost
legacy carrier with a limited network. They needed
a partner. Badly. It sounds like they were desperate
for a date to the prom. They were swiping right
on everyone. In the late 80s, they tried to merge
with SAS Scandinavian Airlines. That actually
made a lot of sense. Two similar -sized carriers
combining forces. What happened? Politics. The
deal got blocked by internal squabbling. Then
British Airways and KLM bought stakes. That fell
apart because of management disputes. So they're
just getting passed around. They really are.
Then Air France bought a stake in 1993. And that
didn't last either. No. Air France had its own
massive problems at the time. So by 1990... Swiss
Air. That's what they called them. Yes. Swiss
Air was considered the most stable, prestigious,
financially sound airline in Europe. They were
Swiss. Punctual, rich, efficient. So when Swiss
Air says, we want to buy 49 % of Sabina and take
over management, the Belgians must have thought,
thank God, we are saved. They popped the champagne.
They thought they had won the lottery. But what
they didn't realize was that the flying bank
was actually undergoing a midlife crisis of its
own. Let's unpack this because this is where
the business strategy gets really interesting
and really disastrous. What was Swissair trying
to do? They had a strategy called the Hunter
Strategy. That's an ominous name. Very. So Swissair
was not in the EU. Switzerland is neutral, right?
So they were worried about being locked out of
the newly deregulated European aviation market.
Right. They needed access. They decided that
since they couldn't just merge easily with an
EU carrier, they would buy up smaller, struggling
airlines to create their own alliance, a sort
of empire by proxy. So they buy Sabina. Who else?
They bought stakes in LTU in Germany, Air Liberté
in France, Volar in Italy, LOT in Poland. Yeah.
A whole collection. Wait, hold on. They are buying
struggling airlines. Yes, that was the core of
the strategy. That sounds like buying a house
with a leaking roof, then buying a car with a
blown engine and thinking, now I have a transportation
empire. That is exactly what they did. It's one
of the most infamous business strategies in aviation
history. They were buying revenue, not profit.
They thought they could fix these airlines with
Swiss efficiency. And all they did was weigh
themselves down with debt. Massive debt. And
for Sabina, this meant what? It meant losing
control. The Swiss management takes over. The
Swiss management came in and they were... Let's
just say arrogant. There was a massive culture
clash. The Belgians felt like the Swiss looked
down on them. But the real nail in the coffin
was the fleet renewal. The 34 Airbuses. Right.
Swiss Air forced Sabina to place a massive order
for 34 brand new Airbus A320 family aircraft.
But Sabina had no money. How could they afford
that? Exactly. It was like forcing a minimum
wage worker to lease a fleet of brand new Mercedes.
It looked great on the tarmac, but the lease
payments absolutely destroyed Sabina's balance
sheet. The debt skyrocketed. So you have a fragile
airline loaded with new debt managed by people
who are overextending themselves across Europe.
And then 2001. The perfect storm. Even before
September 11th, the global economy was slowing
down. The dot -com bubble had burst. Business
travel was down. And then 9 -11 happens. Transatlantic
travel basically stops overnight. For everyone.
It drops to zero and then recovers very, very
slowly. Sabina is hemorrhaging money. But here
is the twist. The rich uncle, Swiss Air, they
are broke too. The hunter's strategy failed.
Catastrophically. The flying bank was insolvent.
They had burned through all their cash reserves,
propping up all these sick airlines they bought.
So both the parent and the child are dying at
the same time. Yes. But there was one last desperate
attempt to save Sabina. The hotel agreement.
This is legendary in Belgium, right? It is. July
17, 2001. The Belgian prime minister at the time,
Guy Verhofstadt, meets the boss of Swissair,
Mario Corti, at a hotel in Brussels. Why a hotel?
Neutral ground, secrecy, late -night high -stakes
negotiations. The pressure was immense. Corti
agrees to a rescue plan. Swissair signs a legally
binding contract promising to inject 258 million
euros into Sabina. That's the lifeline that keeps
the lights on. It was the only hope. But as the
weeks went by, the check didn't arrive. They
ghosted them. Worse. Swissair filed for bankruptcy
protection themselves in early October 2001.
They grounded their entire own fleet. The world
watched in shock as Swissair planes were stuck
on tarmacs because they literally couldn't pay
for fuel. And if Swissair is grounded, Sabina
is finished. Sabina never got the money. On October
3rd, Sabina filed for legal protection. And on
November 7, 2001, the inevitable happened. The
end. November 7 was the last day of operations.
I want to zoom in on that day because it's just
incredibly emotional. You have pilots and cabin
crews flying planes knowing they are unemployed
the moment they land. There's a specific flight
rate. Very last one, flight 690. Yes. An Airbus
A340 registration OOSCZ. It was coming from Abidjan
and Kutunu. An African route. It's fitting, isn't
it? It started with Africa. It ended with Africa.
It landed in Brussels in the morning. The pilots
waved the Belgian flag from the cockpit window.
The ground staff were all there just crying.
It wasn't just a company closing. It was a divorce,
a death in the family. How many people lost their
jobs? Directly, about 12 ,000. Indirectly, probably
double that. Catering companies, logistics, maintenance
firms. It was a social massacre for the region
around the airport. And the anger directed at
the Swiss must have been nuclear. Oh, it was.
The Belgian government sued. There were criminal
investigations that went on for years. And this
is where the story gets a little bit noir. The
Bermuda connection. Yeah. In the aftermath, investigators
started looking at the books and years later,
reports came out allegations that during the
1990s, certain sums of money were being funneled
to a Sabina affiliate in Bermuda. A tax haven.
The classic tax haven. The allegation was that
these were illicit payments to board members.
As kickbacks. The theory, and I have to stress
this is a contested theory, is that some people
at the top were being paid off to look the other
way while the airline was being exploited or
stripped of its assets. Corporate looting. Exactly.
Whether it's true or just a story of gross incompetence,
the result was the same. The airline was hollowed
out. It didn't just die of natural causes. It
was arguably pushed. It's a bitter. Bitter ending.
But before we wrap up the history, I feel like
we need to address something we touched on earlier
but didn't fully explore. The Hotel Rwanda connection.
Because Sabina wasn't just planes. No. And this
brings us back to that infrastructure point.
Sabina built hotels in the Congo and Rwanda to
house their crew and passengers. One of them
was the famous Hotel de Mille Collines in Kigali.
The hotel from the movie. Yes. The main character
in that story, Paul Russo -Vagina, was a Sabina
employee. He was a manager for the Sabina hotel
chain. I never made that connection. That's incredible.
In 1994, during the Rwandan genocide, the fact
that this hotel was Belgian -owned, Sabina -owned,
gave it a tiny, tiny sliver of diplomatic protection.
Rusabagina used that and his position to shelter
over 1 ,200 people. That is profound. It is.
It just shows how deeply embedded Sabina was
in the fabric of the region. For better or for
worse, they were part of the landscape. When
Sabina disappeared, it wasn't just a flight schedule
changing. It was a piece of the post -colonial
infrastructure vanishing. overnight. So Sabine
is gone. But is it? Because if I go to Brussels
airport today, I see a lot of blue and red Brussels
Airlines. The Phoenix. When Sabina collapsed,
the administrators managed to carve out one healthy
subsidiary called Delta Air Transport, or DAT.
Which was their regional flyer. Right. They flew
smaller planes around Europe, they saved it from
the wreckage, they rebranded it as SN Brussels
Airlines, and they kept the SN flight code. Ah,
so that's why my flight number is still SN when
I fly with them. It's the ghost of Sabina. Eventually,
they merged with another carrier, Virgin Express,
and became Brussels Airlines. And now they're
owned by Lufthansa. Now they're owned by Lufthansa.
Ironically, the German giant won in the end.
But the DNA is Sabina. A lot of the pilots, the
culture, and especially the African -focused
Brussels Airlines is still the number one carrier
between Europe and Africa. That legacy survived
the bankruptcy. So let's try to summarize this
epic. We have a company that started with biplanes
made of wood and ended with airbuses grounded
on the tarmac. What is the takeaway for you,
for the listener? I think there are three big
lessons here. First, the incredible bravery of
those early years. We shouldn't forget that 51
-day flight. That was human spirit at its absolute
peak. Agreed. Pure adventure. Second, the danger
of tying a business model to a political reality.
Sabina was built for the colony. When the colony
went away, Sabina never really found a new reason
to exist. It spent 40 years having an identity
crisis. It was a solution looking for a problem.
Perfectly put. And third, the fatal embrace.
Be so, so careful who you merge with. The Swissaire
deal is a textbook case study in how not to do
M &A. It was driven by ego and fear, not by sound
economics. They tried to buy their way out of
a strategic problem and they dragged Sabina down
with them. It really is a tragedy. It's got everything.
Adventure, politics, innovation, betrayal. And
pigs. Don't forget the pigs in the DC -3. And
the pigs. It's a powerful reminder that aviation,
beneath all the glamour, is a brutal, capital
-intensive business where even national icons
are never truly safe. Well, this has been a fascinating
journey from the jungles of the Congo to the
boardrooms of Zurich. Thank you for walking us
through it. My pleasure. It's an incredible story.
And to our listeners, next time you see an SN
on a flight board, you'll know the long, complicated
history behind those two letters. Thanks for
listening to The Deep Dive. Keep looking up,
and we'll see you on the next one.