Belgium’s leading airline – Brussels Airlines – will be sending all its wide-bodied aircraft to Malta to have them serviced and refitted with a completely new cabin at Lufthansa Technik’s plant in Luqa.

The announcement was made in Brussels this week after signing a multi-million euro base maintenance contract with Lufthansa Technik Malta for the carrier’s Airbus A330 fleet.

Lufthansa Technik Malta will provide routine maintenance, known as C-checks, on all the aircraft as from this month and, additionally, will do a full cabin retrofit of the fleet starting in February 2012.

“This is the first time we will work together with Lufthansa Technik for the base maintenance of our long-haul fleet,” Koen Vanaenroyde, Brussels Airlines’ vice president said.

Stephan Drewes, CEO of Lufthansa Technik Malta, said his company considered the contract as a great success. “This is proof of the expertise we have been able to build up over the past three years since we opened the first wide-body line. We have been very successful with the refurbishment programme New Europe Cabin of Lufthansa in the past months and I am absolutely sure that we will deliver the same quality to Brussels Airlines,” he said. The cabin refurbishment programme for Brussels Airlines will include the installation of a completely new cabin with a state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment system in all classes.

The two companies are negotiating further maintenance service contracts for A319/A320 aircraft, with the possibility of more work for Maltese engineers.

Brussels Airlines operates the A330-300s on its Africa network, which serves 19 destinations directly from Brussels.