The story
The airline began operations in 1975, under the auspices of the Aerocondor Group. Aerocondor was founded by former Colonel in the Portuguese Air Force, Victor Brito, with the assistance of his oldest son, Victor João Brito. During the course of its first years, the airline operated regular flights between Bragança and Vila Real, with private passenger and cargo flights to destinations in Europe, Africa and Middle East. It operated a small fleet of robust bi-motor turboprop aircraft.
The need for qualified pilots lead the Aerocondor Group to provide flight-training school operations. This sector was enhanced with the addition of Victor Brito's second oldest son, José Manuel Brito, who served as vice-president of the company.
It was owned by Aerocondor SGPS (85.15%) and Gestair Group (14.85%) and had 90 employees, with headquarters at Cascais Aerodrome. In May 2008, the airline suspended scheduled domestic operations in Portugal.
Flight Training
Yet, as flight operations failed, its aviation school continued to grow, under the hands of Spanish investors who changed its name to Gestair (between 2010 and 2013), when it became part of the GAir Group. Under this umbrella GAir Training Centres expanded flight school bases into Bergamo (Italy), Madrid (Spain) and a new domestic base at Ponte de Sor Aerodrome, supported by an investment of over 50 million euros. After a year, the school changed their headquarters from their base in Cascais to Ponte de Sor. In 2017, the school was acquired by L3 Technologies, who integrated it into its L3 Commercial Training Solutions division and rebranded it L3 Airline Academy.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aerocondor, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4