The National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) of Portugal suspended the certificate of Lusofly Academy, an aviation school based at the Municipal Aerodrome of Bragança, in the north of the country. The decision was made on August 20th by the board of directors and the company was notified four days later. The suspension is total and prevents the school from continuing with any training activity, both theoretical and practical, including flight instruction and simulator instruction.
ANAC justifies the measure after having found that Lusofly, despite the previously granted deadlines for correction of non-conformities, did not present sufficient evidence that it had corrected the detected flaws. The regulator states that the organization does not currently have the human, technical, operational, and financial resources necessary to guarantee the safe and compliant exercise of the activity for which it was certified.
The school had been operating since 2022 without having trained a single pilot, in a course that should have been completed in two years. It charged 70 thousand euros to each of the 36 students enrolled between 2022 and 2025, but did not have flight instructors or aircraft, which led half of the students to leave or request transfers to other schools. Furthermore, former instructors, the municipality of Bragança, service providers, and suppliers were claiming thousands of euros in debts from the school, which also had an ongoing execution process for the seizure of its aviation certificate.
The decision states that, after the six-month suspension period, if the non-conformities are not regularized, the aviation certificate of Lusofly will be cancelled. Regarding the students, ANAC informs that it has already received 17 transfer requests and that the rights arising from the training already completed will be maintained, emphasizing that the organization must preserve all training records of its students.
