Sabena a lesser number of smaller Fokker VIIA and 14 Handley-Page types. It also flew British Westland Wessex aircraft. Sabena occasionally flew to tropical Africa, Belgium's Congo colony, but mostly these aircraft were shipped out. There was no direct flight yet between Belgium and the colony. As the 1930s progressed, Sabena cooperated with Air France and Deutsche Luft Hansa, which also had interests in routes to destinations across Africa. Sabena's first long-haul flight to the Congo occurred on 12 February 1935 and took five and a half days, for which Sabena used a Fokker F-VII/3m aircraft. The following year, Sabena purchased
DBA (airline) 737s for a year. In return BA would receive 25% of any profits or proceeds from a sale until June 2006. It was rebranded as dba. In March 2005 dba announced its intention to acquire rival airline Germania Express (gexx) which would create Germany's third largest airline after Lufthansa and Air Berlin. The "gexx" brand was phased out on the former airline's services, along with its Fokker 100 aircraft which dba has assumed the lease of. dba submitted a binding bid for ailing Greek national airline Olympic Airlines in April 2005, but later withdrew that bid. In the fiscal year