Despite the myriad challenges brought about by the pandemic, East African aeromedical operator AMREF Flying Doctors remained operational from day one, rapidly becoming a focal point for not only COVID-19 evacuation and repatriation as well as other medical conditions in and out of Africa.

A dedicated task force led by AFD’s medical director developed specific protocols and procedures that enabled it to function with minimal disruption and create capacities that its stakeholders could rely on. Through this efficient response, AFD was able to convince different governments and authorities to support its national and international cross-border Covid missions at a time when many borders were closed.

Being an accredited medical assistance service provider, it also provided different medical evacuation and medical assistance services on behalf of its partners. AMREF Flying Doctors represents a wide variety of international insurance and assistance partners from Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Africa while affiliated with International Assistance Group (IAG). It provided a plethora of medical assistance services primarily focused on medical, logistical and technical solutions.

Additionally, AFD staff went out of their way to help with the Kenyan government’s vaccination efforts, all in addition to their usual air ambulance duties.

AMREF owns a fleet of Pilatus PC-12, Citation Bravo C550, Citation XLS C560 and Citation Sovereign C680) aircraft, providing air ambulance services from Africa to the rest of the world. All its aircraft are dedicated and configured air ambulances, equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology.

In response to the increasing demand for domestic and international air medical evacuation, AMREF Flying Doctors recently added the long-range medevac capacity of the Cessna Citation Sovereign 680 aircraft to its fully-owned fleet.

The Citation Sovereign C680 is designed to accommodate the demands of any client requiring evacuation in the event of a medical emergency, particularly on long-distance flights. AMREF Flying Doctors is committed to providing quality medical evacuation services in its region of operation and its neighbouring area.

“The aircraft will significantly assist AMREF Flying Doctors in fulfilling its mission to provide internationally accredited aeromedical and health assistance services through empowered people, leveraging the latest aviation and medical technology to ensure our patients receive unmatched care,” says COO Mike Black.

“We needed an aircraft with longer range and better speed. We are based in Nairobi and we have a fairly diverse fleet: we have PC-12s which do our regional flying down to South Africa or over to Greece. The range of those aircraft is great and they can get in and out of unprepared landing strips, which South Africa has a huge amount of. In our jet fleet we have a Citation 550, a 560 and now the 680. The 550 and 560 are great aircraft but we have found them to be a little bit short on range and speed. This led to a few issues from a crew point of view and a passenger comfort point of view. The shorter the flight and the fewer the tech stops, the better. So that’s why we looked at the 680. It has got a much bigger cabin. The Bravo is small and we use it mainly in Africa. It replaced our former King Air and works well in that niche. The XLS is longer range with a bigger cabin, and then the 680 is much bigger with a stand-up cabin, two stretchers and four seats, one where the cabinetry used to be up front. We have a stretcher system in there.

"It is possible to reconfigure the aircraft quite quickly, but our aircraft are dedicated and stay in their configuration. We plan to cover Europe mostly, across to India and maybe the western edge of China. We typically don’t do the US. And of course we can cover all of Africa. The short field performance is very good, even though it is not billed as a short field jet. Where we are based in Nairobi does not have a particularly long runway. We needed an aircraft that we could pretty much load up and roll out of there.

“As an ambulance operator we cover both the bush and tar to tar, short range to long range. Unless you start to look at aircraft with wider cabins such as the Challenger 605, which is not on our radar right now, the 680 pretty much ticks the final box for us. From a jet point of view we stuck to the Citation range, which has helped us from a maintenance and crew training point of view, because we have that interchangeability.”