I just got back yesterday from a trip to Europe using VG airlines. From what I was told, when Sabena when belly up and relaunched itself as a European regional airline SN Brussels City Airlines, it left international routes up for grabs. Citybird airlines which used to fly to the US, Boston, NY and Los Angeles, also went belly up a few months before when Sabena broke its contract for a code share. Some of you might remember that City Bird flew to the US and soon disappeared. This is because it code shared it routes with Sabena making Sabena its booking and marketing partner to the US. Some of the employees of the old Sabena/City Bird alliance got together and bought the old Sabena/City Bird routes to the US.

Here is a review as to what is why like:
Check in:
The check in at JFK was a breeze. The airline uses a little used Delta terminal that has gates for Delta codeshare partners. Therefore most of the of the passengers check in next door at Delta and walk across the bridge between the two terminals. So VG is basically the only airline that uses the entrance straight to the terminal, so security takes very little time. Brussels was a different story. We arrived two hours before the flight and it took an hour and a half to check. There was a bit of anarchy here as there were long lines and the staff was very slow checking in.

The Plane:
the plane is a new Airbus plane. The seats are a new design, with two reclining buttons. One for the top half of the seat, the other for the bottom. Very comfortable. On the back of every seat is a video screen and a controller attached to the seat with a phone and channel select similar to Vigin Atlantic. The interior though, looks like a sabena/city bird fire sale. All the clothes on the headrests have the sabena logo and all the napkins and cups have the Sabena written on it and the carts and storage compartments in the Kitchen say either City Bird or Sabena on them.

The Crew:
The crew is very experienced. All of them are former Sabena employees laid off when the company went belly up. They all have years of experience in the airline industry.

The service:
This is no frills. The airline food is standard fare. There is no charge for drinks with exception of alcohol which is unusual on international flights. There is a charge for blankets, pillows and ear phones also.
the following are the prices:
ear phones: $3
beer: $3
wine and liquor: $5
pillows & blankets $5

The one good thing about the charge though is that you get to keep what you buy so you can save the earphones, pillows and blankets for the trip back. Or better yet, because the pillows and blankets on airlines are compact. They are perfect for a backpacker to take with limited space in the bag.

When I flew over in the beginning of July there were no movies because they had not signed a deal with the movie companies yet. When I returned at the end of July there was a choice of five movies that play continuously the entire flight.

All in all I think this a good airline for the price. It still has some service issues such a check in or also sometimes it was difficult to hear the PA on the flight. The other thing too, is Brussels is a hub for the low cost carrier, Virgin Express which connects you to many parts of Europe. From the flight from NY, we arrived at 8:30. I grabbed my bags at the baggage claim, walked about twenty feet to the escalator and was up to the departure desks for my flight to Rome which was at 10. I was able to land on VG, get to Virgin, check in, and have breakfast in an hour and half between flights. Not bad. My tickets was $345 rt in the middle of July which is unheard of. On Virgin I paid 49 Euros each way to rome. So basically I got a flight from JFK to Rome RT in July for $445 rt, with very little discomfort to myself or my wallet!