Grounded: Delsey Airlines / VG Airlines

This episode of Grounded takes a look at the short-lived VG Airlines, later known as Delsey Airlines. A Belgian airline formed in the wake of the collapse of Sabena which was pretty much doomed from the start thanks to a lack of start-up capital and the involvement of Air Holland. Despite a rebrand to a "more recognisable" name Delsey Airlines struggled on for a couple more months before the inevitable happened and the airline was grounded. Grab a brew, sit back and relax as we take a look at the VG Airlines / Delsey Airlines story. Chapter Contents 00:00 Intro 00:16 Exit Sabena 01:49 VG Airlines 03:57 The livery 04:47 Regulatory red tape 06:52 A growing fleet with nowhere to go 08:05 VG takes-off 10:24 Financial trouble 11:29 Rebranding as Delsey Airlines 13:20 Fighting low passenger numbers 15:07 Huge losses and cutbacks 16:00 Delsey is Grounded 16:36 What Went Wrong? 22:40 Outro & Credits I mention several airlines in this episode which have been covered already in the Grounded Series, links to those episodes can be found here; TEA - Trans European Airways Formed as a scrappy charter carrier based in Belgium in the 1970s, TEA grew to form the first pan-European airline with subsidiaries in France, Turkey, Italy and the UK. Their overexpansion would be their downfall with the airline collapsing at the dawn of the 1990s.    • Grounded: Trans European Airways   Virgin Express / EuroBelgian Airlines Formed from the ashes of Trans European Airways, EuroBelgian Airlines would morph into Virgin Express, becoming Belgium's second largest airline until they were merged into the incumbent flag carrier to become Brussels Airlines.    • Grounded: Virgin Express   CityBird A third airline adventure from the men behind TEA and EBA/VEX, CityBird had different ambitions at first but history would soon repeat itself as the airline billed as "The Flying Dream" began to have nightmares...    • Grounded: CityBird   National Airlines The 3rd incarnation of National Airlines, based in Las Vegas and partially owned by the growing hotel empire, operating a fleet of Boeing 757s this airline was arguably ahead of its time coming before the boom in Vegas tourism.    • Grounded: National Airlines   Thanks for watching! I really appreciate any comments and feedback on this or other episodes as well as suggestions for future episodes. Believe me, if I say that your airline is "on the list", it really is :) Check back to see future episodes or better yet, subscribe to catch them as they land and as always, thanks for watching! I have a website! https://www.expo-aviation.com/ Or join me on Facebook!   / expoaviation   I'm also on Twitter! (or whatever he is calling it this week)   / expoaviation   I am also on Flickr too where I share images I've managed to snap from the rear steps when I've been out serving drinks across the friendly skies ;) https://flic.kr/ps/3WHZVn #GroundedSeries #DelseyAirlines #VGAirlines