Since 1899, "Lorraine Mondial Air Ballons" is THE most important rally of balloons in the world, according to "The Guinness Book of Records".

The principle : gather each unpaired years, in the same place during ten days at the heart of summer, a thousand of balloon pilots. An event proposed for free to the tens of  thousands visitors present for two takeoff, every day at 6.30AM and 7PM. Lorraine Mondial Air Ballons is, since its origin, relayed by France 3 Lorraine on television and on its website.

The LMAB is a magical and colored spectacle which gather to each takeoff several hundreds of hot air balloons. LMAB, it's also a week of competitions in which 1.000 balloon pilots struggle in the sky around Chambley Planet’Air, at the heart of the Parc Naturel Regional of Lorraine.

At the beginning there was a small group of passionates, accompanying a man and his dream : Philippe Buron-Pilâtre (PBP), heir of the first flying man, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.

Since 1983 (and till 1992), he organizes at Parc de Sainte-Croix in Rhodes (57) then in the heart of Metz (from 1984) the "challenge Pilâtre de Rozier". It gathers tens of balloons. Images are amazing. But Philippe Buron-Pilâtre sees bigger, the Aeroglobe, a project that would gather, in Lorraine, all that can fly, on a single site. Chambley Planet’Air is now a reality.

Before that, BPB wanted to celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution. It became “Fraternité 89”, with 723 balloons on the site of the future regional airport Metz-Nancy-Lorraine in Pagny-lès-Goin. It took place on the 28 July 1989.

Success is so large that the idea of renewing the experience becomes imperative. Two years later, because the preparation is a long-time one, the "Biennale mondiale of aerostation" (become "Mondial Air Ballons" then "Lorraine Mondial Air Ballons") received 1.100 pilots and made 300.000 visitors happy. Nothing could stop the event since that time.  When the "Lorraine airport" (ETZ) was opened, the event migrated, for good, on the ancient NATO air base of Chambley (54).