You’re more than likely familiar with Air Unlimited’s famed flights to the Abacos and custom charter services, but did you know Air Unlimited also does organ transportation flights. These trips save lives by rapidly getting doctors and organs where they need to go. In fact, our pilots have quickly and carefully completed countless life-saving missions, often alongside the Florida Hospital Transplant Institute.
When an organ transportation flight is requested, our team immediately begins making arrangements to find a crew that can fly the organ and medical team between hospitals. This can happen at any moment, so many of our pilots are ready to volunteer at the oddest hours of day or night. The crew also understands that every transportation flight is different than the next. Sometimes, our team transports the organ itself packed in a cooler with ice. Other times, we’re flying a team of doctors to harvest an organ at another hospital and bringing it back home for transplant.
Although this is very different than our typical flight to the Bahamas, it’s a rewarding experience to offer such an important and unique service.
In fact, nearly 120,000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants, and more than 5,000 of them are located right in our backyard, here in Florida. Unfortunately, every 10 minutes, another person is added to the waiting list, and 21 people die every day while waiting for their turn. So, when a match is made, we know that every second counts.
Even though we’ll never meet these patients, we feel honored to help them through our organ transportation flights. If you’d like to make a difference too, we invite you to consider becoming an organ donor. Only 54 percent of Americans are organ donors, yet one donor can single-handedly save and heal more than 75 lives! To learn more about the process or to sign up to be a donor, visit https://www.organdonor.gov/register.html.