The Lufthansa Group is further expanding its pilot training activities and plans to establish a new flight school in Southern Europe. To this end, Lufthansa Technik and its subsidiary Lufthansa Aviation Training (LAT) signed a formal letter of intent with the Portuguese Ministry of Defence on June 9th.
The strategic project primarily aims to establish a specialized training infrastructure for military pilots of the German Armed Forces and allied armed forces. Although official confirmation of the exact geographical location from the company is still pending, this agreement underscores its concrete intentions to expand on the Iberian Peninsula.
Back in May, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr publicly confirmed in Frankfurt am Main that the company was actively seeking another European location for its training network, explicitly naming Portugal as its preferred candidate. Due to its climate, with a high number of days suitable for visual flight rules (VFR) annually, and its well-developed military and civil aviation infrastructure, the country offers ideal conditions for year-round flight training operations. The training of military personnel represents a key strategic pillar for the Lufthansa Group, enabling it to diversify the utilization of its training capacities beyond scheduled civil aviation.
To date, the aviation group has primarily consolidated its training of future cockpit pilots for its own subsidiaries under the umbrella of the "European Flight Academy" (EFA), which operates locations in Germany, Switzerland, and the USA, among others. A spokesperson for the academy emphasized that the global training network is continuously reviewed with regard to strategic suitability, economic factors, and regulatory frameworks. The commencement of large-scale military pilot training in Portugal requires close coordination with the national aviation authorities and the defense ministries of the participating NATO partners to meet the specific requirements of military flight training.