EUROPEAN ROTORS brings the vertical aviation community Together

This year, EUROPEAN ROTORS takes place in Lyon, France. Why was this venue chosen and what benefits does it bring to the event?

EUROPEAN ROTORS travels because our community is spread across Europe. If the event is to represent that community properly, it must meet its different national and regional parts where they live and work – and Lyon places us in the middle of one of the strongest operational communities on the continent.

Hosting the event together with the Union Française de l’Hélicoptère adds that experience to what our visitors and exhibitors already bring from across Europe and beyond. Every edition of EUROPEAN ROTORS is built on this exchange, each new host community contributes its own expertise to it, and takes something back from it.

EUROPEAN ROTORS is more than a trade show, can you expand on the educational and career elements of the show, and why these subjects were chosen for the agenda?

EUROPEAN ROTORS was created by an association and is endorsed by the regulator, and that origin shapes everything: it is built around the exchange of knowledge, not only the display of products.

Most European operators are small. They cannot maintain large training departments, yet they fly some of the most demanding missions in aviation. EUROPEAN ROTORS is their shared classroom, a place where crews learn from other crews, where operational experience is passed between countries and mission types, and where safety lessons reach the people who apply them.

The career elements follow the same logic. This industry offers young people something many of them are actively looking for: work with a clear purpose, serving society. Our task is to show them that, and to connect them directly with the employers, mentors, and training organizations who can open the door.

There is year on year growth for EUROPEAN ROTORS, is this edition going to be bigger than before, is there anything new for 2026, and what else can attendees and exhibitors expect from the event?

The event has grown every year since its founding, and the interest in the first French edition has been strong from the start. But what makes 2026 genuinely new is not scale, it is the community it brings in. A significant part of the French vertical aviation sector will be present at a European event on home ground for the first time, alongside exhibitors and visitors from across Europe and beyond.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Rotorcraft Symposium opens the event, placing safety and open dialogue at the front of the week, before the exhibition and the operational, technical and career programme unfold across the following days. Our theme this year is ‘Together’, and attendees will see it applied practically: crewed and uncrewed, civil and parapublic, established operators and new entrants, all in one place.

What else should attendees and exhibitors know about the event?

Plan early, and plan practically. The EASA Rotorcraft Symposium opens the event on 30 November, with the exhibition running from 1–3 December at EUREXPO Lyon. The full four days are worth the commitment, because the value of this event lies as much in the people you meet as in the program you attend. The EUROPEAN ROTORS website provides accommodation booking, travel guidance, and letters of invitation for international visitors, plus a dedicated Flight Ops Guide for flying your own aircraft to the show.

Then, come prepared to take part. EUROPEAN ROTORS is shaped by everyone who joins it – operators, crews, engineers, students, and new entrants alike, and each of them takes something different home from it. That is how we continue shaping Europe’s vertical flight: safely, sustainably, together.