How Swissair Killed Belgium's National Airline

In 1995, the airline Europe called "the flying bank" bought half of Belgium's national airline. Six years later, within five weeks of each other, both airlines had collapsed. This is the story of Sabena, the airline that grew up on its routes to the Belgian Congo and survived for decades on state money, and of Swissair's Hunter strategy: a plan to build a European airline empire by buying stakes in airline after airline, until the money ran out. You'll see the 1995 deal, the promise to take Sabena to 85 percent, the Astoria dinner where Belgium's prime minister and Swissair's new boss struck a deal behind the backs of Sabena's own board, the grounding of the entire Swissair fleet on October 2, 2001, and the last Sabena flight home, when employees formed a human chain around the aircraft. It ends in court. In 2011, the Brussels court of appeal ruled that Swissair had broken its contract, and that without the money it refused to pay, Sabena could not have been saved. What Belgium actually got back is the last twist. Watch next: how Ryanair turned Charleroi, the same year Sabena died, into its first base on the continent    • What You Don't Know About Ryanair's Low Fa...   CHAPTERS 0:00 Two airlines, five weeks 1:24 Sabena's fragile origins 3:03 Air France pulls out 3:54 Enter the flying bank 4:35 The Hunter strategy 7:16 The Astoria dinner 8:46 Grounded, then bankrupt 10:57 What came after 11:51 The verdict SOURCES Brussels Court of Appeal, Sabena / SAirGroup ruling, 27 January 2011 European Commission, approval of the Belgian bridging loan to Sabena (2001) Aviation Strategy, "Sabena: Europe's first flag-carrier failure?" (December 1998) Wikipedia, Sabena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabena Wikipedia, Swissair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair Wikipedia, SAirGroup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAirGroup Subscribe for the next story of how a European giant rose and fell.