A Year in Review: Our Global Training Community, Stronger Than Ever

Dear colleagues, partners, and friends,

As we reach the end of a landmark year for the global aviation training community, we want to take a moment to reflect on our shared progress, and to thank you for being an essential part of the CAT community.

Across WATS in Orlando, APATS in Singapore, and EATS in Cascais, through workshops, meetings, content, and discussions, 2025 has demonstrated something unmistakable: aviation training thrives when our community comes together.

We plan to take that message forward and offer support to local and regional communities, with in-person meetings in India and the Middle East next year. 

We will also relaunch e-CAT magazine in the new year. This continues our mission of promoting best practices in training worldwide, building on our almost 40 years of support to the global aviation training community.

In a year defined by rapid technological change, workforce transformation and growing operational demands, we've seen that collaboration, standardisation, and open dialogue remain the strongest drivers of progress in our sector.

This year brought record-breaking engagement across all three summits. EATS became the largest European Airline Training Summit in our history, with unprecedented turnout, many new airlines joining the community, packed workshops, and exceptional exhibitor feedback. 

WATS continued its role as the world's largest aviation training event, bringing together an unmatched cross-section of decision-makers, training leaders, OEMs and solution providers. 

The value of being together in one place, at a time when the industry needs unity more than ever, came through in every workshop, panel, and networking session. 

Meanwhile, APATS strengthened its position as the most important training event in Asia-Pacific, supporting a region experiencing rapid growth in airline operations, fleet expansion, and openness to training innovation. Insights from the APATS Heads of Training forums and workshops continue to shape industry thinking across pilot, cabin crew, maintenance, and ab-initio training.

Across all three events, one message came through repeatedly: the aviation training community wants, and needs, spaces to collaborate, align and share.

Beyond the events themselves, 2025 saw the expansion of the CAT Magazine editorial platform, delivering deeper analysis on workforce readiness and instructor development, standardisation in an era of increasingly decentralised airline operations, CBTA implementation and real-world challenges, training technologies that actually improve performance, and data-informed decision making across training, operations, and safety. 

We've explored XR, AI and next-gen simulation capabilities, and examined the evolving role of ATOs, MTOs and training centres globally. Through articles, interviews, newsletters, reports and special forums, we've amplified the voices shaping the future of safety-critical training, from OEMs and airlines to regulators, innovators, and training centres.

One of the strongest outcomes this year has been the ROI growth for exhibitors and sponsors across all Halldale events.

We've seen higher traffic and deeper engagement in exhibition halls, increased onsite deals, new partnerships, and lead generation, greater international attendance and representation, content-driven visibility across CAT publications, Halldale media, and social platforms, record digital amplification, and a fast-growing global audience actively searching for new training solutions.

We are very proud that Halldale events remain the only platform where the full aviation training ecosystem - airlines, regulators, OEMs, ATOs, MTOs, training centres, technology providers and more - connects under one roof with purpose.

2025 also marked a major step forward for the global Heads of Training community, which has now grown to over 400 pilot members worldwide. This group has rapidly become one of the most influential and respected networks in the aviation training ecosystem. Total membership is over 1500.

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Through its confidential reporting, regional roundtables and strategic closed-door discussions, the HoT community has helped drive clearer regulatory understanding, greater alignment across airlines and ATOs, and more informed training strategy at a global level. 

The ability for pilot and cabin crew training leaders to openly compare challenges, share best practice and collectively interpret evolving requirements has become an invaluable asset for the industry.

Alongside HoT, the Aviation Training Leader Forum continued to provide a vital space for broader industry leadership dialogue, complementing the deep technical focus of the HoT network. 

Together, these communities form a core pillar of CAT's mission, fostering trusted, practitioner-led spaces where aviation training leaders can collaborate, align and shape the future of global training.

2025 marked an important transition for our editorial team, and the entire Halldale team, as we embraced the full range of podcasts, video, audio and traditional text - plus of course AI - that today's audience demands.

As we look ahead to 2026, we have strengthened our editorial capability with new leadership and an expanded team of regionally based writers, ensuring we continue to deliver rigorous, insightful and forward-looking, impartial and trusted coverage for the global training community. An expanded run of our podcast series, AI in Action, is on the table, along with a new 'Inside Aviation Training' programme of interviews and write-ups, plus candid insights from community leaders that will guarantee thought-leading content from every corner of the world.

In addition, we are already preparing the next evolution of the global training summit series and look forward to a new and exciting format.

Registration opens in January for WATS 2026, so look out for a message from us with Early Bird Rates.

WATS 2026 returns to Orlando from 5–7 May, with new workshops, expanded content streams, fresh speakers and deeper collaboration, including dedicated HoT workshops for both pilot and cabin crew. The largest gathering of the year is back. APATS 2026 marks a major new chapter for the Asia-Pacific training community as we head to Bangkok from 31 August to 2 September, offering a high-ROI marketplace and unmatched access to regional decision makers. And EATS 2026 will take place in Europe from 4–6 November, building on the success and momentum of 2025, with renewed focus on standardisation, CBTA, and cross-community knowledge sharing.

Thank you for being part of this journey. We look forward to seeing you in 2026.

Save Your Seat For WATS 2026!