Originally set up as Delta Air Transport in 1966 to service feeder routes into Brussels for Sabena international flights, the airline now known as dat (in trendy lower case) was relaunched in October 2001 as a smaller-scale successor to Sabena after the latter went bankrupt in the wake of the collapse of its partner Swissair following the World Trade Center attack. DAT was to service Sabena's former European short-haul routes from Brussels (around thirty destinations to start with), using aircraft formerly owned by Sabena (having previously had a fleet of only 32 small planes itself). Additional finance was an issue for the new company, particularly following disputes with the receivers handling Sabena's other subsidiary companies, and the airline was accused by other European carriers of receiving unfair subsidies from the Belgian government to allow for some fairly generous launch offers.

At the time of writing, it appears likely that dat will merge or at least form a very close partnership with Virgin Express who have taken a large stake in the company and also use Brussels as a base of operations. The company has a website at http://www.dat.be.

Update 2002-02-23

Presumably in order to avoid having to spend so much of their limited resources on repainting tailfin logos and to distance itself from its humble origins, DAT has now rebranded itself as SN Brussels Airlines, serving 35 European destinations from Brussels National Airport (BRU).