Our traditional Annual Winter Training seminar took place on 7 November 2019. We welcomed airline representatives at the popular Holiday Inn Prague Airport and focused on news from the industry.

How was the event viewed by us and the participants? Here is an example:

 “It was great. I was very happy we were able to take part in it because, honestly, it exceeded all my expectations. We’re already looking forward to next year’s.”

Stanislava Lagová Hužovičová, ELITE JET s.r.o.

We appreciate these words very much, thank you.

Looking back at AWT 2019

The topics covered this year started off with David Jágr, the Civil Aviation Authority director, presenting on the latest at CAA. He emphasised the open policy of the CAA towards all partners as well as a CAA’s aim at a constructive discussion and being a productive part of problem-solving.

Michal Pazourek of ABS Jets presented the specifics of OCC for Business Aviation operators, and Marek Andrejs of Smartwings discussed current challenges of Boeing 737-8 MAX operations.

Meteorology came next, its effects on flight planning, cost index and its use in practice. The other talking point was bearing capacity of RWYs and taxiways. With the winter coming, Captain Jan Zemánek of Smartwings caught everyone’s attention by his overview of cold weather operations. Just like last year, Robert Rajtmajer took from his Army experience and presented the specifics of air traffic in war zones and IFR flying with helicopters. Tomáš Duka, an ATC methodologist, wrapped things up with the harmonization of RNAV and RNP terminology.

All participants had the opportunity to share their day to day challenges not only with the speakers, but also with colleagues from other companies.

We believe we have raised the bar again for next year based on the overall feedback given by participants. More than 90% of them gave the conference a top score of 1 (1 to 5 school-like grades), and they also expressed maximum satisfaction with the organisation of the conference, the materials provided and the overall value of the service.

Although the participants were from different operational backgrounds, which made it a challenge for us to meet everyone’s expectations, we managed to hold a conference that received an average grade of 1.6 and our speakers did even better, getting an average grade of 1.3.

We thank all participants for their attendance, the speakers and colleagues for their help in preparing this event and we look forward to seeing you at the next one, the 4th AWT.