Brussels Airlines chose Malta as the place to upgrade its fleet because of the quality of aircraft maintenance and the competitive pricing, a top executive said yesterday.
Geert Sciot, vice president of communications, said the Lufthansa Technik plant in Malta outdid competition in other countries, including Asia, making the deal the biggest-ever collaboration between Belgium and Malta.
“We needed to upgrade our fleet, so we went on the market to see where we could do it,” he told Finance Minister Tonio Fenech during a visit to the Lufthansa Technik facilities in Luqa, where the job on one of Brussels Airlines’ Airbus A330s is under way.
“We could have gone anywhere, even Asia, but decided on Malta because of the price-quality ratio and because of the excellent reputation its aircraft maintenance plant has,” Mr Sciot said.
Lufthansa Technik will carry out a major overhaul of all of the airline’s seven A330s. They will be serviced and refitted with a completely new cabin as part of a multi-million euro contract signed between both parties.
Lufthansa Technik Malta is doing routine maintenance, known as C-checks, on all the aircraft. The full cabin retrofit of the fleet is expected to start in February.
Mr Sciot said 15 to 20 years ago, Air Malta aircraft were sent to Brussels for maintenance and now this had reversed. His airline had been collaborating with Air Malta for the past eight years through a code-share agreement.
The work on the long-haul aircraft will involve about 6,000 man hours of labour.
Describing the contract as “challenging”, Lufthansa Technik Malta CEO, Stephan Drewes, said he had full confidence in the company’s skilled workforce, the majority of whom are Maltese, to do the job.
“We have confidence in our dedicated people, a young team with an average age of just 28,” he said, adding that the company was “still on its way” to building its workforce.
The cabin refurbishment programme will include the installation of 280 seats in every aircraft and a completely new cabin with a state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment system in all classes.
The airline will also be sending two of its A319 aircraft in the coming weeks. Brussels Airlines operates the A330-300s on its Africa network, which serves 19 destinations directly from Brussels.
Mr Fenech thanked both companies for their contribution to the Maltese economy, especially Lufthansa Technik Malta for helping the country “weather the storm of the financial crisis”.
The company, with the assistance of the government, has invested more than €60 million in its Malta plant and another €18 million on workshops having the latest equipment, making the plant the second largest in Europe in terms of maintenance.