100 Years of Connecting Belgium With Africa

Real World Aviation
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Brussels Airlines Celebrates Aviation Heritage

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Credit: Brussels Airlines.

On the 12th of February 2025, it had been officially 100 years since the first flight took off from Belgium to Africa.

Brussels Airlines now celebrates this historic flight, by adorning their long-haul fleet of Airbus A330-300s with a special sticker.

The First Flight

On the 12th of February 1925, three Belgian aviators embarked on an ambitious journey; to link Belgium with the African continent.

The crew consisted of pilot Léopold Roger, navigator Edmond Thieffry, and engineer Jef de Bruycker. The aircraft used on the flight was a Handley Page W.8f (built in Belgium by SABCA under license), registered O-BAHO and named “Princesse Marie-José”.

Photo of the aircraft on the day of departure.

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Credit: AirHistory.net Photo Archive / Nationaal Archief (Netherlands).

This three-engine biplane airliner would take them across roughly 8000 kilometres (~5000 miles) in the span of 51 days. The three men encountered various obstacles across their journey, including unpredictable weather, mechanical issues, and simply the vast expanse of the African continent.

The flight took off from Haren Airport (or Evere Airfield, it was known by multiple names), the former main airport in Brussels, Belgium. Between 1914 and the early 1950s, Haren-Evere Airport served as the hub for airlines such as Sabena. The current Brussels Airport was built in the early 1940s, and by 1942 the two airports were connected by a roughly 3,5km long taxiway.

The destination for this flight would be LĂ©opoldville, the capital of the Belgian Congo. In the current day, this place is now known as Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC.

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Credit: Brussels Airlines.

This historic flight laid the foundation for a long-lasting connection, one that Brussels Airlines keeps operational to this day.

In Modern Times

One century later, Belgium is still very much connected to Africa via the air. Brussels Airlines operates to 18 destinations across sub-Saharan Africa, including Kinshasa.

Whereas the very first flight took 51 days to complete, 100 years later Brussels Airlines will get you there in around 8 hours on board one of their Airbus A330-300 aircraft.

To commemorate this historic time, Brussels Airlines A330s now feature a special sticker, stating “100 Years of Connecting With Africa”. You may also notice the crew aboard these flights wearing a special pin with the same message.

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Credit: Brussels Airlines.

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Credit: Brussels Airlines.

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Credit: Brussels Airlines.

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11 Likes
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Definitely something to remember, including the controversy. Brussels Airlines inherited Sabena’s expertise on African routes and is still a strong player on this matter.

Right now Brussels Airlines is an essential airline for African - European connections, even in times when the situation was dire like the ebola crisis, Brussels Airlines has still flown and helped doctors / medical stuff (in) directly.

In short, in my opinion controversial in earlier times, yet in today’s context inspiring.
Hopefully we will keep on connecting Africa and vice versa. Hopefully some routes to Angola and more countries.đź‘€

Also fun fact, I pass daily by the metro station of Edmond Thieffry. I get off the next station to get to my Uni.

Nice from you for posting @T1MMY4L1F3_YT 🍻

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Brussels Airlines did indeed continue Sabena’s legacy in Africa, and they certainly are the African “expert” so to say within the Lufthansa Group.

Brussels Airlines’ involvement during the Western African Ebola epidemic between 2013 and 2016 was incredible in my opinion. When all other airlines essentially stopped flying completely to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Brussels Airlines kept on going, flying in crucial medical staff and equipment. But that’s a whole other story on it’s own (which I might write in the future, who knows).

I certainly hope Brussels Airlines keeps on expanding in Africa. While the route to Luanda is unfortunately disappearing soon, hopefully new destinations will take it’s place.

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I mean we should have more A333’s in the future, no? I hope with increasing the frequencies of some routes, that they also expand. Perhaps some niche places, so not necessarily adis ababa because Ethiopian does that. But some Angola / Mozambique destinations etc would be also quite an untapped market imo.

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The 11th A330-300 (D-AIKM from Lufthansa) should join the fleet sometime during May. It’s currently undergoing maintenance in Manila.

A 12th and 13th A330-300 should join sometime during 2026 and 2027 respectively. After that, it’s not yet known how the long-haul fleet will expand further.

I believe there will mainly be a reduction in triangle routes and increase in direct services with these extra aircraft coming, while also offering a much needed “spare” aircraft, as unfortunately a lot of the time at least one long-haul Brussels Airlines flight gets cancelled per day.

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About time, it just complicates thing further. Weird how we know about acquiring such aircraft but they take so much time to get repurposed to Brussels Airlines. It’s almost faster to just order new aircraft, as in the case with the 3 extra new A320neo’s in 2026.

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Well, any order for new aircraft goes through Lufthansa, as we know. As for the A330s, same story applies.

Lufthansa is slowly retiring them in favour of the 787-9s, so Brussels Airlines will slowly take some of them over as they get retired.

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What’s so weird is that we still can reuse older aircraft with loud engine noises, those doesn’t seem to be a problem that much for the government, while the A339 is quiter, the government didn’t like the idea of that?

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Yeah, I personally still don’t understand how the A330neo is “too loud”. But when does anything ever make sense in Belgium.

I suppose for Brussels Airlines it makes more sense to get older second hand A330s from a group member that will be too loud like their entire current fleet, instead of ordering a brand new plane that will be “too loud” within a year anyway.

I assume it’ll work with “fines” or extra costs or something, so they might as well get cheaper A330s instead of more expensive (new) ones if they’re going to have to pay those fines anyway.

Plus, I think Lufthansa themselves have made it clear that they don’t want to order the A330neo (rather the 787 for themselves and Austrian). Although now that ITA is part of the group (partially at least), technically the A330neo is now also part of the group fleet, so who knows what might happen in the future.

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