The Journal for Civil Aviation Training (CAT) is now accepting presentation abstracts for the World Aviation Training Symposium (WATS). There are a limited number of speaker slots available at the world’s largest aviation training conference.

Across all streams of the conference, presentations and moderated discussions led by industry experts will focus on increasing understanding of human performance for this safety-critical industry.

The overall theme of WATS 2022 is:

Enabling the World Airline Industry


Conference programmes are being developed for three streams:

  • International & Regional Pilot Training
  • Cabin Crew Training
  • Maintenance Training

PLUS a new Special Bonus day on Emerging Technologies:

  • Virtual, augmented and mixed realities (VR/AR/MR/XR) and their applications to aviation training
  • and the new challenges of training for eVTOL and regional electric aircraft.

For each of the conference tracks, presentation proposals should address an aspect of aviation training and education in one or more of these broad categories:

  • Airline recovery and growth, including pilot hiring, recurrent/retraining, overcoming skills decay and staffing shortages.
  • Training the next generation, including ATOs, diversity, funding, EBT/CBTA/AQP/KSA100/ABLE/MPL and instructor standardisation.
  • Technology enablers including:
    – FSTDs/FFSs/FTDs/FNPTs
    – XR/VR/AR
    – Big data/AI/cloud
  • Human factors and personnel readiness, including cognitive processes, biometrics/tracking sensors, situational awareness and UPRT.
  • Emergent aviation modes, including advanced air mobility (AAM/eVTOL/UAM) and supersonic.
  • Environmental sustainability, including electric aircraft and green ATO.
  • Business aviation training challenges and solutions.
  • Civil helicopter training challenges and solutions.
  • Cabin crew training challenges and solutions, including Covid and unruly pax.
  • Maintenance technician training challenges and solutions.
  • Air traffic management training challenges and solutions.
  • Regulatory challenges and developments.
  • OEMs and industry associations roles.


To propose a presentation for any of the WATS conference streams, please complete the online form here by 14th January 2022.

Abstracts must be accompanied by:

  • A recorded video (NEW), either of the speaker presenting the abstract or of a previous industry conference presentation;
  • A short biography of the speaker(s), which should include contact information, title, position and employer and conference presentation experience.
  • A photo of (each of) the speaker(s).

Preference will be given to air carriers and training organizations with real-world training insights.

WATS is an ‘applied’ conference and while full academic papers are not appropriate, we welcome summaries of relevant aviation training and education research. Also, our highly knowledgeable audience expects presentations which are not overt product/company sales pitches. (There will be commercial opportunities throughout the conference). Presentations must fit into a format which is 15-18 minutes ‘delivered’, followed by a Q&A period. Non-standard presentations such as panels, breakout sessions, demonstrations etc. will also be considered.

We sincerely thank all those who propose presentations and will endeavour to respond to all submissions.