PAvCon Europe comes to Bilbao from 5–7 June 2023

PAvCon Europe is operated largely in house by Police Aviation News, modelled on the Airborne Public Safety events in the USA. Similar to the American model, it travels to different venues with a mixture of flight safety messages and the latest news and views on advances in aerial policing from the industry. This year sees the first revisitation of a former venue, it was previously with the Basque Police at Iurreta near Bilbao in 2011.

There are currently 40 aerospace industry exhibitors in the hangar, which is being used as the exhibition hall and more are expected. Back in 2011, there were just 12 exhibitors, each being crammed in the foyer of the conference, but that is not possible on this occasion with number that have already booked their place.

With days to go and three of the major airframe manufacturers – Airbus, Bell and Leonardo – present and sponsoring aspects of the event, it is looking to be a successful event even before it opens its doors.

The number of police services drawn from across Europe to take part in the training day and presentations at the main conference has grown this year to include Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain (of course), Sweden, Switzerland and the USA – final police services are to be confirmed on the first day of the event.

The focus of the conference will be highlighting flight safety issues – including crew resource management and inadvertent flight into bad weather – but its main purpose is to engender networking to build relationships between the suppliers and the operators so that each can influence future needs.

The continued popularity of the event is due its ability to focus on the subject matter and provide great value for exhibitors to meet day-to-day working police aviation fliers and buyers. The main conference and exhibition days will be on Tuesday and Wednesday (6–7 June). There is only a small rise in cost on the 2022 exhibitor prices to meet growing inflation across Europe and, thanks to low staff levels and an efficient focus, it has seen only a slight rise on the 2011 event price.