The NFTE, a High Visibility Project launched in June 2020 at the meeting of NATO Defence Ministers, is a multinational initiative consisting of a network of training campuses set up for different types of pilots: fighter jet pilots, helicopter and transport pilots, as well as personnel who remotely pilot aircraft. This initiative will enable adaptable pilot training across Europe, using existing training structures whenever possible.
The establishment of the Support Partnership marks a critical initial milestone in the NFTE’s ambition to fundamentally reshape the air crew training landscape in Europe toward less fragmentation, lower training costs and increased interoperability. The NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) will play a key role in delivering the corresponding centralised broker function. This will mean leveraging existing national and multinational facilities in Europe and, where necessary, expanding or potentially creating new training capacities to fully and effectively address training requirements for all different types of pilots.
Over time, the core ambition of the NFTE is to link an increasing number of training campuses together. In January 2023, three training sites – in Greece, Hungary and North Macedonia – were added to NFTE project. The 120th Air Training Wing in Kalamata, at Kecskemet Air Base and Air Training Center near Skopje, has joined centers in the Czech Republic and Italy on the list of official training sites for the Alliance’s military pilots. This important expansion of NFTE’s training base has been achieved thanks to Czechia, which has led the project so far.
