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Fresh off a deal to buy Collins Aerospace’s airport technology unit, SITA on Oct. 26 said it agreed to buy Flightscape, Canadian training giant CAE’s subscription-based digital aviation software for crew scheduling and flight planning, for CA$701 million ($500 million).
SITA, a global information technology provider owned by around 400 global aviation organizations, already supports the wider operation around those activities. In 2021, SITA acquired Safety Line, whose technology helps airlines fly more fuel-efficiently, and earlier this year it acquired Big Blue Analytics, whose artificial intelligence (AI) helps build recovery plans in minutes.
But SITA explained in its latest announcement that much of that information sits outside the systems where airlines make their operational decisions. In turn, Flightscape—used daily by more than 90 airlines—will add an operational core, complementing SITA’s existing products.
“Technology and AI can now help airlines and their partners see more of what is happening and respond together,” said Yann Cabaret, CEO of SITA for Aircraft. “With Flightscape, our aim is to give an airline’s operations team and its partners across the industry the same information when plans change, so they can recover as one operation rather than as separate parts,” Cabaret said in the announcement.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Financial analyst Cameron Doerksen of National Bank of Canada Financial Markets said the price looked attractive for CAE, which bought Flightscape in 2021 for around CA$500 million at the time. They believe the business generated about $150 million in annual revenue and $55 million in pretax earnings in the last pre-COVID-19 pandemic year in 2019. CAE invested further in the unit to expand its offerings.
The Flightscape selloff comes amid divestitures CAE is making as it focuses on core civil and defense businesses, which the company announced in May. A CAE statement said proceeds from the latest sale will go to shareholder rewards and internal investments. Previously, CAE said its enterprise resource planning technology and Montreal factory could be beneficiaries.
Doerksen believes CAE has more deals to make. “With Flightscape making up ~4-5% of total company revenue for CAE, it was the largest of the non-core businesses planned for divestiture,” he and associate Andrew Pikul said in an investor note after the announcement. “However, there are still additional businesses that CAE will look to divest, likely making up another 3-4% of revenue ($150-200 million). Although we don’t expect the remaining non-core businesses to generate the same level of proceeds as the Flightscape deal, we believe there could be additional sale proceeds for CAE in the coming quarters.”
More information may come in November when CAE is expected to report its fiscal 2027 second-quarter results.
SITA will be working to close the Flightscape acquisition at the same time as the Collins Airport Solutions buy, announced earlier this month. Collins, an RTX subsidiary, describes its airport technology business as offering “integrated and intelligent solutions for passenger processing and facilitation, airport operations and baggage management.” It adds that its self-service technology enables the streamlined movement of high volumes of passengers through airports.
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