Metropolitan udergoing scrapping Delta Air Transport was founded in June 1966, by Frans Van den Bergh, to perform
air taxi and charter flight services with an initial fleet of three
Cessna aircraft (one each of the types
Skymaster,
210 and
206). Flight operations started in the following year. These were followed by first scheduled flight from Antwerp to
Amsterdam on behalf of
KLM on September 19, 1967; for that purpose two
Beechcraft Queen Air feederliners were acquired (some sources erroneously mention three of the type). at
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in June 1972 on a scheduled service from
Antwerp Airport In the following years operations grew when the larger
Douglas DC-3,
CV440 and
DC-6 aircraft joined the fleet over the following years, allowing DAT to operate charter flights on behalf of KLM (which owned a 33.3% stake),
Sabena,
Crossair and
BIAS. In 1973, the majority of the airline's stake was bought by
Compagnie Maritime Belge. During 1974, a
Boeing 720 was aircraft lease|leased, allowing DAT to offer worldwide charter flights under the
Delta International brand, which soon turned out to be unsuccessful, though. In 1986, Sabena acquired a 49% stake. Consequentially an increasing number of flights were operated on behalf of the Belgian flag airline henceforth (also adopting Sabena flight numbers), using a fleet of
British Aerospace 146 aircraft, in favor of which other airliners were gradually phased out. DAT became a member of the
European Regional Airlines Association in 1993. In 1996, Sabena bought the remaining KLM stake, and DAT became a wholly owned Sabena subsidiary, moved its headquarters from Antwerp to
Brussels and was re-branded as
DAT Belgian Regional Airline, offering low-cost flights too. Gradually, the livery of Sabena was applied to all DAT aircraft. On 7 November 2001, Sabena collapsed due to financial difficulties. DAT could re-launch its operations on 10 November with a flight to
Geneva, having received all of Sabena's slots at Brussels Airport and thus being able to maintain the successful European network.
Freddy Van Gaever, its former CEO, planned to merge DAT with
Virgin Express and add flights towards the United States using former Sabena aircraft. This is the reason why the new
DAT Plus brand was adopted. Actually, DAT came under the umbrella of SN Airholding (the liquidator of Sabena), and in 2002 was re-organized under a new
AOC. The activities continued for some years as just
SN Brussels Airlines which five years later became
Brussels Airlines after merging with Virgin Express. DAT operations were totally absorbed in the new Belgian flag airline on March 25, 2007. ==Destinations==