LUFTHANSA SYSTEMS GMBH & CO KG

Their core work

Lufthansa Systems is the IT services subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group, providing technology solutions for the aviation industry — from flight operations and crew management to passenger services and airline infrastructure. In H2020, they contributed domain expertise in cloud computing, secure multi-cloud deployments, and high-performance computing as applied to large-scale airline and air traffic management systems. Their participation in SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) reflects their direct involvement in modernizing European air traffic management through trajectory optimization.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Lufthansa Systems' H2020 activity was concentrated in a short window (2015–2017 project starts), making it difficult to identify a strong temporal shift. Their earlier projects (MUSA, BEACON) focused on cloud infrastructure — security and federation — while the later entries (PJ18 4DTM, PROCESS) moved toward domain-specific applications: aviation trajectory management and exascale computing. This suggests a progression from foundational cloud R&D toward applying those capabilities to aviation-specific and computationally intensive use cases.

They appear to be moving from general cloud R&D toward domain-specific computing applications in aviation and large-scale data processing, suggesting future interest in AI-driven flight operations or digital twins for air traffic.

How they like to work

Lufthansa Systems consistently joins projects as a participant or third party rather than leading them, contributing industrial-scale IT expertise and real-world aviation use cases to research consortia. With 71 unique partners across 24 countries from just 4 projects, they operate in large, diverse consortia — typical for SESAR and ICT infrastructure projects. This makes them a valuable industry end-user partner who can validate research outputs against production airline systems.

Despite only 4 projects, Lufthansa Systems has built connections with 71 partners across 24 countries, reflecting the large consortium sizes of SESAR and ICT infrastructure calls. Their network spans most of Europe with no narrow geographic concentration.

What sets them apart

Lufthansa Systems brings something rare to research consortia: a direct pipeline from R&D results to deployment in one of Europe's largest airline groups. Cloud, HPC, and ATM innovations tested with them have a credible path to real-world adoption at massive scale. For consortium builders, they offer both technical IT depth and an unmatched aviation industry validation environment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• MUSA
  Largest EC contribution (EUR 496K) and addressed the commercially critical challenge of securing applications across multiple cloud providers.
• PJ18 4DTM
  Part of the SESAR programme for modernizing European air traffic management — directly connects to Lufthansa's core aviation business.
• PROCESS
  Addressed exascale computing challenges, signaling ambition to handle next-generation computational workloads beyond typical enterprise IT.