Aviation

For every pilot, ensuring the safety of passengers and crew is always the number one priority.

This makes passenger health and fitness-to-fly a key issue for every flight. When a mid-air medical emergency does take place, the individual concerned is often just one of the many people who are directly affected. Any decision to divert for medical assistance inevitably involves all the additional risks associated with an unplanned landing, not to mention significant financial costs and considerable inconvenience.

For these reasons, preventing an in-flight emergency from occurring in the first place is invariably the most desirable solution. We believe the best response is to have in place well-trained crew members who immediately know what practical action to take. In addition, they must also have immediate access at all times to the best possible professional advice on the ground.

In the instance that an emergency diversion is required, flight crew need to know which airport to go to for the best and most relevant professional expertise.

Protecting your passengers is our priority

Ensure the safety of your passengers and crew at all times. Our specialist teams can help you to prevent in-flight medical emergencies. If an issue does arise, we can provide you with immediate access to unrivalled professional advice on the ground, 24/7.

Our aviation support services are provided by our specialist subsidiary company MedAire. MedAire is dedicated to helping aviation companies mitigate travel risks and protect the health and safety of passengers and crew. Each year, thousands of international travellers rely on our services.

To ensure the greatest possible relevance to your needs, our services have been developed by experienced aviation professionals. Our experts have worked for leading airlines in areas from regulatory compliance and crew training to policies & procedures and in-house medical departments.

Specialist services

Starting pre-flight, we can provide your airline personnel with an accurate assessment of a passenger’s medical fitness-to-fly – an action that may prevent an in-flight event and diversion from taking place at all. The process begins with a phone call based on our Medical Guidelines for Air Travel in conjunction with an airline’s protocols. During this, our dedicated nurses are on hand to help your crew with all things health related – e.g. ask questions that crew members may not feel comfortable asking passengers.

MedAire’s seasoned medical professionals also deliver training for crews, based on aviation regulatory standards, that helps them recognise and manage illness, use all onboard medical equipment including defibrillators, and administer CPR.

When more support is needed, crew members also have in-flight access via aircraft satellite phone, HF/VHF radio or the ACARS system to MedLink, the world’s first global emergency response centre for aviation . This gives them a direct link 24/7 to a team of emergency department doctors who manage many thousands of in-flight emergencies every year, and who between them can communicate in over 140 languages and dialects.

And when a diversion is required, our in-depth and constantly updated knowledge of the medical response capabilities of over 5,000 airports across the world can help the crew choose the best destination for the patient’s specific condition.

We’re proud to say that our services for aviation are valued so highly throughout the industry that they are standard today on all new aircraft from manufacturers including Gulfstream, Boeing Business Jets, Beechcraft and Bombardier.