Lufthansa is exploring a sale of Lido and NetLine, the airline software at its Lufthansa Systems subsidiary, in a deal worth close to €1bn, the Financial Times reported on 16 October. Lido plans the route and fuel for each flight, and NetLine builds schedules, assigns aircraft and crews and helps operations controllers recover from disruption. Private equity investors are seen as the likely buyers. The obvious comparison is Thoma Bravo, which bought Jeppesen from Boeing for $10.55bn and now owns Lido’s closest competitor.

Sirax, which works out how much revenue each ticket has actually earned, could also be included, according to reports of the FT story by Reuters and by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), the German news agency. Lufthansa has engaged banks, the people cited by the FT said, though no bank has been named. Talks are at an early stage and no decision has been taken. A Lufthansa spokesperson declined to comment.

The software in the Lufthansa Systems sale

Lido Flight 4D is the flagship. Lufthansa Systems says more than 125 airline operators use it, flying a combined fleet of more than 7,700 aircraft. Named users include Singapore Airlines, which has run it since 2002, KLM, Eurowings, Azul and China Airlines, which renewed in 2025. The Lido brand also covers pilot charting apps and navigation data for aircraft flight management computers, produced under a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certificate.

NetLine’s scheduling tool is used by more than 60 airlines, the company says, and its operations control system by more than 50. Thai Airways, a customer for over 25 years, extended NetLine into operations control and crew management in 2025. Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and Pegasus are named users, as is TAP Air Portugal, which uses NetLine Plan for network planning.

Sirax is smaller. Lufthansa Systems describes a community of more than 20 airline customers. Its newer product is built for IATA’s ONE Order standard, under which airlines replace separate ticket and booking records with a single order covering everything a passenger has bought. Finnair selected it in July 2026.

Lufthansa Systems has about 3,100 staff and is based in Raunheim, near Frankfurt. Lufthansa has been selling businesses outside flying for several years: LSG catering went to Aurelius in 2023, and AirPlus to SEB Kort in July 2024 for about €450m. The software sale comes days after Portugal’s government chose Lufthansa on 14 October to buy up to 49.9 per cent of TAP for €1,201m, which Boston Warwick covered in Lufthansa’s TAP stake and the ACG Airbus order.

Thoma Bravo and Jeppesen ForeFlight

Thoma Bravo agreed on 22 April 2025 to buy Jeppesen, ForeFlight, AerData and OzRunways from Boeing in an all-cash deal valued at $10.55bn, and completed it on 3 November 2025. The business now trades as Jeppesen ForeFlight, with products running from flight planning and dispatch to crew tracking. It launched its first AI agents for commercial aviation on 6 October 2026.

That makes Jeppesen ForeFlight the most direct competitor to Lido in flight planning, charts and navigation data, and it overlaps with NetLine in crew. A €1bn sale would also put a fresh price on a category in which Thoma Bravo has just made one of its larger bets.

Bar chart of airline software deal values: Jeppesen ForeFlight $10.55bn (Thoma Bravo, 2025), Lido and NetLine close to €1bn (reported, October 2026), Sabre AirCentre $392.5m (CAE, 2022).
Recent airline software deal values
DealValue (as reported)
Jeppesen ForeFlight (Thoma Bravo, completed Nov 2025)$10.55bn
Lido and NetLine (reported, 16 Oct 2026)close to €1bn (reported, not agreed)
Sabre AirCentre (CAE, 2022)$392.5m enterprise value
Airline software deal values. The Lido and NetLine figure is a press report, not an agreed price. Currencies are as reported and not converted.Sources: Boeing, 22 April 2025; Financial Times, 16 October 2026; CAE, 1 March 2022.

Thoma Bravo has an obvious reason to look. Adding Lido would remove its main European rival in flight planning and add a long list of airline customers. The same overlap is the problem. Competition authorities would be likely to examine any deal that put the two main independent flight planning and navigation data suppliers under one owner, and airlines might push back. A bid for NetLine alone would overlap far less. For Jeppesen ForeFlight, the more likely effect is a rival owned by a buyer with fresh capital and its own plans for the same customers.

Other owners in the sector face similar questions. Vista Equity Partners owns Accelya, which competes with Sirax in revenue accounting. Apax holds a minority stake in IBS Software, whose iFlight system Transavia chose in 2025 for operations and crew. Airbus owns NAVBLUE, and CAE, the Canadian training group, bought Sabre’s airline operations software for an enterprise value of $392.5m in 2022. We think that favours a buyer with no airline software business today, because it would face less risk of a lengthy competition review.

Flightkeys is the newer challenger. Founded in Vienna in 2015, it sells Flightkeys 5D, a cloud-based flight planning and optimisation system. Southwest Airlines moved its whole network of about 4,500 daily flights onto it between June and October 2024, and Air Caraïbes and French bee went live in November 2024. In September 2024 the US software investor Insight Partners announced a growth investment in the company.

In Boston Warwick’s view, Lufthansa Systems offers one of the broadest ranges in the market, covering flight planning, navigation data, scheduling, operations control, crew and revenue accounting. Jeppesen ForeFlight covers much of the same ground and adds the ForeFlight pilot apps.

Room to grow and the strength of the customer base

In Boston Warwick’s view, the business has room to grow and a customer base that is hard to dislodge, for the reasons below.

Switching costs are high. Lido Flight 4D offers more than 2,700 configuration settings and over 50 interfaces to other airline systems, according to its 2026 product sheet. Once set up, it sits deep inside each airline’s dispatch process. Tenures are long: Thai Airways for more than 25 years, Singapore Airlines on Lido since 2002.

Customers who leave sometimes come back. SriLankan Airlines, based at Bandaranaike International Airport, Colombo, Sri Lanka (CMB/VCBI), moved to another flight planning system and returned to Lido Flight 4D in June 2026. Lufthansa Systems says reusing earlier configurations cut the reimplementation to four to six months. The departure also shows customers can move.

The navigation data is certified. Lido navigation data for flight management computers is produced under an EASA Service Provider Certificate Type 1 and covers more than 35,000 aerodromes, the company says. Certification takes time to obtain and limits the number of credible suppliers. Lido Sky Data is also marketed to drone and urban air mobility users.

Order accounting is an opening. IATA’s ONE Order standard will move airline accounting from tickets to orders. Sirax has a commercial customer in Finnair and a proof of concept with All Nippon Airways running since September 2024. Few airlines have adopted order accounting from any supplier yet, so growth would start from a small base.

Cloud hosting is another route. Lufthansa Systems already hosts several products on its Global Aviation Cloud, which runs on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Moving long-standing customers from installed software to hosted subscriptions is a familiar way for a new owner to raise recurring revenue.

Many airlines are not yet customers. Lido’s 125-plus operators are a fraction of the world’s airlines, and the product list has no reservation or departure control system. That leaves room to sell to new carriers, and room for an owner to buy or partner to offer a fuller suite. For scale, SITA estimates airlines spent $36bn on IT in 2025, though that covers all airline IT and is not a market size for these products.

In Boston Warwick’s view, a new owner could use that customer base to move further into ground held by Accelya, IBS Software and SITA. The gaps are real, though. Sirax has a little over 20 airline customers, and reservation and departure control systems are core business for IBS and SITA. Growth there would most likely come through acquisitions rather than from the current products alone.

The case against a high price

The published profit is small. Lufthansa’s 2025 annual report shows Lufthansa Systems made Adjusted EBIT of €9m in 2025, up from €2m in 2024. On those figures a price near €1bn is a bet on what a new owner can do. Lufthansa has not published separate figures for the assets under discussion.

The rivals are bigger. Jeppesen ForeFlight carries a $10.55bn price tag and the backing of a software investor. NAVBLUE claims more than 600 customers and belongs to Airbus, which can sell flight operations software alongside aircraft and data services.

Lufthansa is a large customer. Its airlines, including Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Edelweiss, signed a multi-year NetLine Ops ++ contract in 2020 and also use Lido and Sirax products. A buyer will need a long service agreement with the group, and its terms are likely to weigh heavily on the price.

Separation costs money. The software runs today inside a group with shared people and systems, and a buyer would have to set up its own. Lufthansa Systems has been through this before. In October 2014 Lufthansa agreed to sell the unit’s IT infrastructure arm to IBM with a seven-year contract that IBM valued at €1bn, and about 1,400 employees moved across. In 2015 the company was split into separate airline software, industry IT and infrastructure units. The remaining business has already been reshaped once, and a buyer will want to know what still depends on outside providers.

Effects on airlines and the software market

A private equity owner would probably push harder on growth than Lufthansa has. That could mean faster moves to cloud subscriptions, higher prices at renewal, and acquisitions to fill gaps in the product list. Two financially owned rivals, Lido and Jeppesen ForeFlight, would then compete for the same airline flight operations budgets.

Airlines due to renew a flight planning or operations control contract in the next two years have the most at stake. They will want clarity on pricing, support and product plans under a new owner, and the change of ownership gives them a reason to test the market.

Frequently asked questions

How much could the assets sell for? The FT reported on 16 October 2026 that the software assets under discussion could fetch close to €1bn. Lufthansa has not confirmed a figure.

Who might buy the software? No buyer has been named. People cited by the FT said private equity investors are the likely buyers.

Is all of Lufthansa Systems for sale? The reports name Lido and NetLine, with Sirax possibly included. No final perimeter has been reported.

Talk to Boston Warwick

Boston Warwick advises private equity and other investors on aviation deals, including buy-side due diligence on airline software businesses such as Lufthansa Systems. That work covers customer contracts, competition risk and what a carve-out will cost. If you are looking at this sale or at Jeppesen ForeFlight’s market, contact us to arrange a call.

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