SITA, the aviation technology company owned by the air transport industry, has agreed to acquire Flightscape, the airline operations software business of CAE (Nasdaq: CAE; TSX: CAE), for an enterprise value of $500 million, subject to customary adjustments, CAE said on October 26.
More than 90 airlines use Flightscape's software every day, SITA said, for flight planning, crew management, operations control, ground coordination and in-flight services. The SITA Flightscape acquisition is SITA's second deal in 11 days: on October 15 it agreed to buy the airport technology business of Collins Aerospace, which sells passenger processing, baggage and airport operations systems.
The deal in four numbers, from the two companies' announcements:
Why CAE is selling
CAE said on May 11 that it was weighing options for Flightscape, from partnerships and outside investment to a sale, after a review of its portfolio. At the time it described Flightscape as a cloud-based software business with more than 600 staff across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The agreement with SITA came about five and a half months later.
CAE presented the sale as part of a plan to concentrate on simulation and training. "This transaction is fully consistent with our transformation plan and will sharpen CAE's focus to our core Civil and Defense businesses," said Matthew Bromberg, CAE's president and chief executive. CAE plans to spend the proceeds on its simulation and training businesses and on returning capital to shareholders.
What SITA gets
SITA already links airlines, airports and other partners through the data they exchange, but said much of that data is missing from the systems airlines use to make operational decisions. Flightscape would give SITA those systems. Yann Cabaret, CEO of SITA for Aircraft, said the goal is for airline operations teams and their industry partners to see the same information when a plan changes.
The hardest decisions in an operations control center come when plans change and every minute counts.Yann Cabaret, CEO of SITA for Aircraft
SITA bought Safety Line, which makes software to cut airlines' fuel use, in 2021, and Big Blue Analytics, which uses AI to draw up recovery plans when operations are disrupted, in 2026. SITA plans to combine both with Flightscape's systems step by step, and said that work will start only after the deal closes.
How the price compares
CAE does not report Flightscape's revenue separately. Part of the business came from Sabre: in 2021 CAE agreed to pay $392.5 million for Sabre's AirCentre airline operations portfolio, whose flight management, crew management, movement management, airport and in-flight products all appear in the lineup CAE now sells as Flightscape. AirCentre had revenue of about $150 million in 2019, before the pandemic, CAE's investor summary for that deal said, and CAE completed the purchase in its fiscal 2022, according to its latest annual report.
Cameron Doerksen, an analyst at National Bank of Canada Financial Markets, estimated that Flightscape makes up about 4% to 5% of CAE's revenue, Aviation Week reported. CAE's revenue was C$4.9 billion in the year to March 31, 2026.
What changes for airlines
Flightscape will run as usual until the deal closes, CAE said, and customers can expect "continuity in service, support and product development." SITA said Flightscape's products will stay "modular and open," letting airlines pick the parts they need and plug them into systems they already use. SITA expects both of its pending acquisitions to close in the first half of 2027.
