Young Eagles Online Registration Update — Phase 4

EAA is working through Phase 4 developments throughout the holiday season and into early 2026. This phase consists of four rather large additions to the tool.

1. Added functionality which will provide the option to reserve seats for infrequent fliers. One of the biggest unintended consequences of introducing preregistration for Young Eagles events is that parents who know and are familiar with the registration cadence are eating up many seats when preregistration first opens. This leaves very limited space for first-time Young Eagles or Young Eagles that haven’t flown recently. In some instances, there are youths flying 12 or more times per year.

   While EAA sees great value in providing multiple Young Eagles flights, the primary intent of the program is to provide first-time flights for youths. Returning Young Eagles should be pointed toward how to join the chapter and invited to other chapter activities. These are the youths who are most likely primed to become members, Air Academy campers, and Ray Aviation Scholarship candidates. As they get involved with the chapter, additional Young Eagles flights are encouraged.

   To combat this issue, chapters will have the option to reserve a set percentage of seats for youths with little Young Eagles flight experience. The function will reserve these seats for youths with two or fewer Young Eagles flights in the past 12-month period.

   The thought process is to be a bit more forgiving with this restriction when it’s first introduced, as we can always tighten the limits further down the line if deemed necessary.
   
   

2. Added functionality which provides the option to restrict registrations based on a radius from the event ZIP code. Another unintended consequence of online preregistration was the flood of registrations, for certain events, of youths from more than one hour from the airport. While EAA would love to fly as many youths as possible, accepting registrations from too far away can prove problematic in two regards.

   First, the no-show rate for youths from a further distance away tends to be much higher. This leads to youths missing out on potential flights and disappointed volunteers. Second, there are chapters that prefer to fly youths from the immediate local area, as they are primarily focused on engaging local families and providing on-going added value to these families through follow-up aviation activities.
   
   

3. Improvement to waiver verification and event auditing functionality. While this feature may not be very exciting to members using the tool in the field, this is a critical function for EAA to ensure that a signed waiver by the parent/pilot is completed before every Young Eagles flight. The current function allows EAA to complete this audit, but the updates will make the process much more efficient, speeding up data entry processes. If your chapter fails to acquire the proper signatures, EAA will follow up with the chapter coordinator.
   
   
4. Inclusion of an email log, displaying all emails sent by the system. One of the initial exclusions to the new online registration tool was the email log, which was in the original YEDay. This log will be added back in, so users can review all emails sent by the system, including date sent, who it was sent to, and a review of the full email.

Outside of these four major enhancements, we are continuing to meet with internal EAA web developers to take care of small enhancements.

As always, please reach out to us at youngeagles@eaa.org with any comments or questions.