downturn in activity due to the pandemic. He was able to balance that by changing schedules at the other bases to help account for the increasing delays and uncertainty on the ground. “Duty days got really strange. Typically when you fly to a hospital you’d have a 15-20 minute turnaround, and now it was an hour and a half. It was difficult to plan flights around COVID,” he states. The aircraft also were disinfected with UV lights after every call. This required more pilots on hand to manage
the increased downtime during a shift and reduce the fatigue of crews during the height of the pandemic. All of those measures were effective at keeping his crews alert, informed, and ready when the community needed them. “And we didn’t have to let anyone go, which is great,” he adds with a smile.
