A wrap up & a work in progress
Ok, just a quick wrap up from APATS.
As expected, the Asia Pacific Airline Training Summit presents the best opportunity in the region to talk about training with trainers. There are plenty of conferences but none with the focus on training like APATS and let’s talk about maintenance training for a second (after all it is my special subject) I don’t know where else you’re going to get 50 or 60 people in the same room, all with the shared goal of educating and developing great engineers.
We had some great presentations this year, everything from how we train and engage with Gen Z to language proficiency/assertiveness, to competency-based training and how do we train enough engineers/technicians to meet the demand.
No doubt the talking point, post the conference was the discussion we had around “failure to follow”. We had some passionate discussion in the room, stories and examples. I think we recognise that there is a growing problem, less manpower, tightened timelines, perhaps poorly written procedures, plenty of different reasons, and root causes, I don’t know if we come up with a solution, but recognising we have a problem is the first step.
I’ll be honest I’ve probably learnt more about Human Factors in the last two APATS, that have in the last 15 years of poorly delivered (tick the box) HF training. I’m so glad at Aerotrainingx we have some control over that course, and its great I can evolve that learning on the fly, as I learn.
I don’t want to make this about me, but I made a clear error with my own presentation. For years I have held off delivering anything at APATS, I love the moderation work and being involved. The reason I’ve not presented is that we bring in experts, HF experts, CBTA experts, AI, VR… you name it. But I do feel I have a story to tell when it comes to trainer development,
And I didn’t do a great job, this isn’t me being critical, I tried to do something new and missed on delivering my key points. I figured that I could just “tell my story” essentially on the fly, no slide deck, and it was the first time I have done that, in front of that crowd. Now I have seen people freeze on the APATS stage, we get the aviation maintenance version of a TED talk, so there is pressure to meet the standard. I didn’t freeze, but even though I had written and prepared, as I was telling my story, I skipped a piece, and that threw me off, from there on I was scrambling.
But that now becomes the next line in my story of trainer development, experience is experience.
The fact is and my point was, I love training and learning how to be a better presenter. Over my 25-year career, I’ve really only done 1 day of formal professional development. The rest of it is me doing my own research or learning or picking up pointers from other great presenters.
Not every trainer is going to be a learning nerd like me, but we should all be passionate enough to try and always improve, and every time I get better, that means the learning outcomes for my students are improved.
Send an engineer on a course and that benefits the engineer. Send a trainer on a course and that benefits every student that sits in front of the trainer from that point on. If we recognise that the ROI on maintenance training is the best an airline can get, why not add a multiplier to that through trainer development.
For me lesson learned, not only on the presentation, but about trying something for the first time in front of my peers.
APATS moves to Bangkok in 2026, Singapore has been a great host, It’s an amazing city.
