| Quik Flight sees need for locally based air
ambulance
By KENNETH AARON
Business writer
You don't want frequent flyer miles on Quik Flight LLC's latest
service.
But you may be glad to have it around all the same.
The year-old charter flight service is firing up air ambulance
operations, having won approval to do so from the Federal Aviation
Administration on Thursday.
The aircraft charter company, based
at Schenectady County Airport, soon will begin using its Piper Cheyenne
I as a ferry for patients needing to make interstate medical runs,
said Chandler Atkins, the company's president.
Fixed-wing services such as Quik Flight are different from helicopter
airlifts that whisk accident victims to hospitals. "Our trips are
more planned," Atkins said.
The region has been without a locally based air ambulance since
2001, when Global Air Response left the market. Since then, medical
charters have had to fly in from elsewhere.
"We're going to have the medical team and the plane and everything
right her," Atkins said.
That should make the service Cheaper for locals. Flights are priced
at $3.4O a mile, or $800 an hour, the same as regu1ar charter flights,
he said; the cost for medical personnel is extra. Insurance may
pick up some costs.
Quik Flight spent about $60,000 to outfit its lone plane with
a customized stretcher and other medical equipment.
It will continue making charter runs, too, since the plane can
be converted from an air ambulance to an executive shuttle in 20
minutes.
Atkins is hoping the new service takes off to the tune of 500
hours a year. The company's charter service flies about 300 hours
a year now.
Mike Paston, chairman of the fixed-wing specia1 interest group
of the Association of Air Medical Services, an international trade
group based in Alexandria, Va, said there are about 40 similar services
in the United States. Typical missions include bringing home patients
who have been injured while far away, carrying transplant candidates
to hospitals or ferrying patients for specialized treatment.
Amsterdam physician Dr. Krishnan Raghavan is Quik Flight's medical
director. Sam Rimawi, owner of Ballston Spa nursing agency Staff
Relief, will be vice president and chief flight nurse. |
