COVID-19

StarFlight and LifeFlight pride themselves on being customer focussed, innovative and safe for their clients. 

When COVID broke, our Consultant-led medical teams engaged on a global level developing Standard Operating Procedures to ensure patient and operational crew safety during the pandemic.

Our engineers were the first in the country to modify our aircraft to separate flight crews from patients in the emergency work to repatriate seriously ill COVID patients back to Australia.

Our risk and emergency teams mandated immediate new safety procedures and additional personal protective equipment for all front line staff. The engineering crew set up isolated work teams so they could keep the fleet in the air. We dedicated a 24/7 COVID coordination team and a separate COVID hotline.

In real time our commercial team was working with our 15-year client Queensland Health to expand their contract to give the government exclusive use of LifeFlight’s Air Ambulance jet fleet. A second team was establishing a COVID retrieval service with Sumitomo Corporation in Japan, and putting in place a humanitarian contract with the United Nations, both to operate from LifeFlight’s base in Singapore.

While Victoria went into lock down, StarFlight pushed through to deliver the first 3,300 flying hours of a long term contract to give Victoria Police new aircraft and capabilities now considered one of the best multi-role operations in the world.

We believe in keeping people safe, and we live the commitment.

LifeFlight’s aeromedical teams alone delivered a record 2500 missions in a year, more than 2000 by helicopter and almost 500 air ambulance rescues.

Our frontline crews were confronting the unknown at great personal risk. The sacrifice, by many, to isolate from their families meant that 99.8% of shifts were covered, even when borders closed.

The Board’s decision, which put us first to mandate COVID vaccinations for all staff, speaks to the respect we have for our clients, and our care of all Australians.