EATS 2026 Day Two: From Human Factors to Show-Floor Announcements

The final day of EATS 2026 in Cascais brought the focus back to people, from the instructors who assess them to the pilots and crew who need to stay ready over a long career. It was also a busy day on the exhibition floor, with several announcements from across the industry. For Halldale Managing Director Vincent Brain’s reflections on this year’s event and news about next year’s venue, read his message here.

Fit to Fly, Fit to Last

The closing plenary brought all four streams together in the Auditorium, moderated by Captain Jacques Drappier, around the idea that qualification is not the same as long-term readiness.

Captain Yari Franciosa and Vanessa Arrigoni of Deep Blue presented Mental Health in Aviation: Reinforcing the Barriers. Rather than focusing on diagnosing disorders, their approach looks at assessing systemic prevention barriers, in order to prevent everyday strain from becoming a safety hazard at individual, team, organisational and regulatory levels. Structured peer support programmes and soft skills such as active listening in briefings were among their examples.

Aviation psychologist Aleksandra Kapela of MyWingman followed with The Human Factors Revolution: Why It’s Time to Rethink the Way We Train Pilots. Human factors has moved aviation away from blaming “pilot error” towards understanding how people, technology and organisations interact, but Kapela asked whether the industry has changed the way it trains pilots as much as it has changed the way it understands them. Psychology and behavioural science have reshaped what we know about learning, decision-making and performance under pressure, yet many programmes still focus on teaching procedures rather than developing the people who apply them. Her answer was to build human factors into the whole training philosophy, not just dedicated lessons, and she introduced the PILOT Human Factors Review Framework to help organisations do that. The question it poses is simple. Are we just teaching human factors, or are we designing training around how people actually learn, think and perform?

Across the Streams

Earlier in the day, the Pilot & ATO panel on the future of ab initio training compared two distinct routes to the flight deck. easyJet and ITA Airways, which both train through Urbe Aero, discussed their approaches, and EASA’s Ascanio Russo also joined the panel. Instructor standardisation ran through several sessions, with In the Pilot stream, CAE and Simaero looked at instructor standardisation, while Cabin Crew sessions covered instructor development and how to assess leadership. In the Maintenance stream, sessions covered digital twins that put the right information in technicians’ hands, how cultural friction affects safety in multicultural environments, and human factors training that inspires positive behavioural change and promotes wellbeing.

News from the Show Floor

Several companies used the final day to share news.

• ALSIM and European Flyers announced that Airliner and ALX simulators are now operating at European Flyers’ bases in Madrid and Alicante, bringing MCC training to Alicante. Read the announcement here.
• ProSim Training Solutions announced two new customers. Icelandair selected its A322 FTD, and Turkish Airlines Flight Academy will use two fixed-base simulators in its MPL programme. 
• Heading365 and Aviation Exchange Group announced a partnership to offer Heading365’s B737 FMS Trainer PRO to Aviation Exchange Group’s customers. Read the announcement here.
• Blue Angels Air signed a training services agreement with the Airbus Flight Academy, with cadet training due to begin in 2027. Read the announcement here.
• Private-Radar brought Charlie, its AI scheduling assistant for flight schools, to EATS. Read the announcement here.
• AMST-Aviation selected Moog to supply motion systems for three full flight simulators. Read the announcement here.

Next stop: Orlando

Can’t wait until next year’s EATS? The training community meets again at Halldale’s global summit, the World Aviation Training Summit (WATS), from 21–22 April 2027 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando. Register below.