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
Sabena technics to secure a strategic opening into central and northern Europe markets. 2007: The EADS Sogerma sites in Mérignac and in Tunisia as well as EADS Barfield join Sabena technics Group Sogerma services, originally the MRO services provider at EADS Sogerma and based in Bordeaux, brings to the group a new structure capable of providing further support to both civil and military customers as well as an important design office and an entity dedicated to the training and certification of technicians working on all types of Airbus. Barfield, renamed “Barfield, a Sabena technics company,” based in Miami, Phoenix, Louisville and Bogota,