Essex & Herts Air Ambulance gets support from Harrods Aviation Ltd and London Luton Airport.

31 July 2018

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance gets support from Harrods Aviation Ltd and London Luton Airport.

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) is to receive support from Harrods Aviation Ltd and London Luton Airport (LLA).

Harrods Aviation Ltd, a specialist private aviation operator at LLA, has agreed to waive all landing charges and handling costs if one of EHAAT’s helicopters needs to call at the airport, while London Luton Airport has agreed to supply fuel free of charge.

EHAAT provides Helicopter Emergency Medical Services across Essex, Hertfordshire and surrounding areas including Bedfordshire. As a result, crews can find themselves tasked to deal with an emergency at LLA or in the nearby area.

Whilst LLA has never charged landing fees in the event of an emergency at the airport, the new arrangement means that the life-saving charity can now use LLA as a pit stop without incurring any charges.

Cliff Gale, Operations Director of EHAAT said: “As a Charity we are grateful for all the support we get to keep us flying and we are always looking for ways of supporting our essential costs.

“This gesture from Harrods Aviation and London Luton Airport is particularly welcome has it comes from two organisations in the aviation world that we work closely with.”

Will Holroyd, Sales and Marketing Director at Harrods Aviation Ltd said: “We are proud to be supporting the important and invaluable work performed by the Essex and Herts Air Ambulance. Of course, we hope to never see the ambulance at Luton, but if we do they can be assured of receiving immediate and full support on the ground from Harrods Aviation.

Liam Bolger, Head of Airside at LLA said: “Essex & Herts Air Ambulance does invaluable work at the airport and in the local community and we are delighted to be able to support them. Covering the cost of fuel is our way of saying thank you to this fantastic organisation, and we hope that this will help EHAAT to continue with its life-saving work.”

-ENDS-

Photographs:

1. EHAAT’s AgustaWestland 169 at Luton. L-R is David Kelly (Co-Pilot), Scott McIlwaine (Clinical Operations Manager), Jim Lynch (Chief Pilot), Neil Thompson,(Operations Director, London Luton Airport); Barry Hunter, (Chief Financial Officer, London Luton Airport); Michael Reader, Base Manager, Harrods Aviation.

2. Scott McIlwaine (EHAAT) with Barry Hunter, (Chief Financial Officer, London Luton Airport) and Neil Thompson,(Operations Director, London Luton Airport);

For more information please contact the Communications Team on 0345 2417 690.

Notes to Editor:

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) is a Charity that provides a Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) for the critically ill and injured of Essex, Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas.

The service is provided free of charge but, unlike NHS emergency services, the Charity receives no direct funding from the Government or National Lottery. It costs £500,000 every month to keep the service operational and saving lives, and this would not be possible without the generosity and goodwill of people and businesses of Essex, Hertfordshire and beyond.

Each of the Charity’s HEMS teams consist of two Pilots, a Pre-hospital Care Doctor and a Critical Care Paramedic.

These teams, made up of highly-skilled individuals, tended to 1077 patients in 2016 and are the backbone of your local life-saving Charity.

The fleet, consisting of two Air Ambulances, and four Rapid Response Vehicles (RRVs - cars) operates seven days a week from 7am to 9pm. After sunset, the Critical Care Team continues to provide the service using Rapid Response Vehicles.

In addition, a Rapid Response Vehicle is operational on a Friday and Saturday evening from 6pm until 2am with a Pre-hospital Care Doctor and Critical Care Paramedic.

London Luton Airport (LLA) is one of the UK’s largest airports and carried 15.8 million passengers in 2017, an increase of 8.6% on 2016. The airport indirectly employs over 9,400 staff and is a key economic driver for the region.

easyJet, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Thomas Cook Airlines, Tui, EL AL, Blue Air, TAROM, SunExpress, Iberia (Air Nostrum) and Vueling currently operate from the airport. The airport’s route network serves more than 140 destinations including services to Europe, Africa, and Asia.

LLA is currently investing over £160million to transform the airport and increase capacity from 12 million to 18 million passengers per year by 2020.

accelerate the economic benefits of the current transformation project which is set to increase LLA’s economic contribution by 77% from £1.3 billion in 2013 to £2.3 billion per annum by 2030.