Editing Sabena (section)

===1946–1960: Transatlantic expansion===
[[File:Douglas DC-3D OO-AUM Sabena Ringway 08.07.49 edited-3.jpg|thumb|[[Douglas DC-3]] of Sabena in 1949]]
[[File:Douglas DC-6B OO-CTI Sabena Ringway 13.11.55 edited-1.jpg|thumb|Sabena [[Douglas DC-6]]B arriving at Manchester Airport from New York in 1955]]
After the war, in 1946 Sabena resumed operating a network of intra-European scheduled services. The fleet initially consisted mainly of Douglas DC-3s. There were thousands of surplus [[Douglas C-47 Skytrain]]s (the military variant of the DC-3) available to help airlines restart operations after the war. The airline now flew under the name of '''SABENA - Belgian World Airlines'''.

Sabena started its first transatlantic route to New York City on 4 June 1946, initially using unpressurised [[Douglas DC-4]] airliners which were augmented and later replaced by [[Douglas DC-6]]Bs. The DC-4s also restarted the airline's traditional route to the Belgian Congo. Sabena was the first airline to introduce transatlantic schedules from the north of England, when one of its DC-6Bs inaugurated the Brussels-[[Manchester Airport|Manchester]]-[[New York City|New York]] route on 28 October 1953.

The [[Convair 240]] was introduced in 1949 to partially replace the DC-3s that until then had flown most European services. As of 1956, improved [[Convair 440|Convair&nbsp;440 "Metropolitan"]] twins began replacing the Convair 240 twins and were used successfully well into the 1960s between European regional destinations.

In 1957, the long-range [[Douglas DC-7]]C was introduced for long-haul routes but this plane would begin to be supplanted after only three years by the [[jet age]]. It remained in service on the transatlantic route until 1962.

On 3 June 1954, a Soviet Air Force [[Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15]] ([[NATO reporting name]] "Fagot") attacked a Sabena-operated [[Douglas DC-3]] on a cargo flight from the United Kingdom to [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], killing the radio operator and wounding both the captain and engineer. Co-pilot Douglas Wilson managed to land in Austria but the plane suffered significant damage.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19540603-0 |title=Aviation Safety Network |publisher=[[Aviation Safety Network]]|access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref>

For the [[Expo 58|1958 world exposition]] in Brussels, Sabena leased two [[Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation|Lockheed Super Constellation]]s from [[Seaboard World Airlines]], using them mainly on transatlantic routes. In the same period, there were experiments with helicopter passenger service using [[Sikorsky S-58]] aircraft from Brussels to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and the Paris heliport at [[Issy-les-Moulineaux]].