I didn't know that Brussels lost the "S" beacuse I work in a radar center that is not located in the airport (but in a spa town about 40km away from the nearest
)!
Searching about new Brussels Airlines callsign on the net, I found also other forum complaining a lot about it.
I couldn't imagine that the problem was so diffused... and never thought about Brussels Airlines, VOR (that means SID-STAR I suppose!), Units ecc!
I also found this old post (of Dec 2006) in the ATC Humor thread:
A couple of weeks ago.
As DAT and VEX merged into Brussels Airlines we were woundering wat de new callsign would be. Their new livery has a big B in dots on the tail. And DAT is now known as S-tail (big S on their tail).
Anyway I asked an S-tail pilot if I had to call him B-tail from now on forward. He liked it a continued calling himself B-tail123. His colleague still went on with S-tail as he didn't have the new livery yet. A third S-tail pilot followed all before and called in with SMARTIES456.
Must say chearful pilots.
So the callsign "Brussels Airlines" is a recent problem, but they were wondering about a new one since december 2006!!
Someone else already thought about B-Tail one year before of the problem! Also "Smarties" is easy and would be nice!
I've tried to call them "Brux" or "D-A-T"... but pilot wasn't so happy about it!