The flight schools of the Lufthansa Group in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States are combining their activities under the European Flight Academy (EFA) umbrella. This was decided by the Group Executive Board in its meeting on May 24, 2016.

EFA will offer the airlines of the Lufthansa Group (LHG), as well as in the external market, standardized pilot training of consistently high quality at competitive prices, from a single source. Training is carried out at the existing flight schools Lufthansa Flight Training Pilot School (VFS) Bremen, Airline Training Center Arizona (ATCA), Pilot Training Network (PTN), and Swiss Aviation Training (SAT).

For the time being, new training courses will only begin at PTN, which will also take over training for a portion of the pilots of the Lufthansa Group from now on. For this purpose, the selection process, training course, and the qualification system of PTN will be adapted to that of the Lufthansa Group. New training courses at VFS Bremen can be resumed once, in particular, the collective bargaining terms have been settled.

From now on, graduates of the EFA flight schools will receive an airline license that meets the requirements of the Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL). With this license, they benefit from added flexibility in shaping their future career, because ATPL certification is recognized and does not require a preliminary decision regarding at which airline the career path will continue.

In order to ensure high-quality training with optimal economic efficiency, EFA is also investing in the modernization and expansion of its current fleet of training aircraft as well as modern training methods.

“With growing airline fleets, the global demand for well-trained crews also increases,” says Rainer Hiltebrand, designated CEO of Lufthansa Aviation Training. “At the European Flight Academy, airlines will be able to meet their need for pilots – reliably and flexibly – from a pool of highly qualified pilots-to-be.