Not all aircraft are grounded during containment. Private flights continue, and some for a good cause. Since Tuesday, the association Aviation Without Borders has been organizing free transfers for healthcare staff, who are fighting on the front line against the Covid-19. Being able to serve up to 500 aerodromes in France, it is almost from hospital to hospital that they can move from one end of the country to the other in a minimum of time to respond to the emergency.
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A platform for airlines and hospitals
And since air traffic is almost zero, there are fewer traffic jams in the air. One of the first transfers made on Tuesday linked Grenoble to Ajaccio in an hour and five minutes. "It's highways, we can save up to fifteen minutes, it's huge," said the microphone of Europe 1 the commander of the Pilatus PC-12, an eight-seat business aircraft of the company Jetfly business, which had a medical professor on board who came to support the caregivers on the Isle of Beauty.
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"We see requests coming"
On that day three other flights were operated in France, under the initiative of Aviation without borders. Via a platform, private airlines can offer flight hours and hospitals allocate them according to their needs. "We wrote to all the regional health agencies to let people know that we were in capacity and suddenly we see requests for transportation of medical teams arriving," explains Tanguy, one of the administrators of the association.
This Falcon 7X made available to @ONG_ASF by @Dassault_OnAir today transported nursing staff engaged in the fight # Covid_19 from Marseille to Mulhouse in less than an hour.
Otherwise it was 7 hours by road or 9 hours by train. Solidarity aviation # COVID19 # solidaritepic.twitter.com / U2Q6Ccf7Bn
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This direct and therefore faster transport would be unthinkable in normal times since an hour's flight costs 2,000 euros. As for the pilots, the concern is low. "We protect ourselves with masks and gloves, the cabins are anyway disinfected after each flight", says the man who made the journey from Grenoble to Ajaccio. Friday, three new transfers are scheduled to transport five caregivers to Nice and Île-de-France, one of the regions most affected by the pandemic.