Sabena Readies To Roll Down Cincinnati's Runways

<I>Cincinnati</I> - The Ohio River city will take an important step toward becoming an international business destination when Sabena Airlines inaugurates service to Brussels May 15-the first regularly scheduled service out of Cincinnati on a foreign airline.

Sabena will fly a 234-seat Airbus A-340 on flights between Brussels and Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, 12 miles southwest in Kentucky. Flights will run daily except for Tuesday and Saturday.

A major motivation for the Belgian carrier to choose Cincinnati is its status as the second largest hub for Delta Air Lines, a Sabena code-sharing partner.

Locally based companies are enthusiastic, as travel managers are looking forward to service that will make their hometown an optional new gateway for European travel.

"The entire business community has been involved in this process and we are all excited," said Tim Chamberlain, vice president of the international department at Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati. Chamberlain's bank has a representative office in Brussels. "This provides us with a conduit for getting our representatives back and forth quickly," he said.

Sabena's decision to set up operations here also is strategically tied to its multicarrier alliance with Delta, Swissair and Austrian Airlines-a group that has been given antitrust immunity in the United States to pursue closer cooperation, according to John Lindekens, vice president-North and South America for Sabena.

"Part of the alliance strategy," he said, "is to make sure the hubs of the various partners are connected to each other. The attraction of Cincinnati is quite obvious: It's the number-two hub for Delta after Atlanta and is very well located in the center of the U.S., and the airport has been designed specifically for efficient connections."

And Delta's commuter partner, Comair, operates the largest fleet of regional jets in the world-about 50-out of Cincinnati.