A clinician flies with your patient, bedside to bedside

What a commercial medical escort does

When a patient is stable enough to fly but not well enough to travel alone, a commercial medical escort bridges the gap. The escort meets the patient at the bedside, reviews the discharge plan with the treating team, and stays with them through the ground transfer, check-in, security, boarding, the flight itself, any connections, and the handoff at the receiving facility or home.

In flight, the escort manages the patient's medications, in-flight oxygen, and monitoring, and handles anything unexpected with the same judgment they bring to an ICU or emergency department. Families and case managers deal with one accountable team from intake to delivery.

Who flies CME missions

The credentialed clinicians who fly CME missions include flight physicians with decades of emergency-medicine experience, flight nurses from cardiac ICU, trauma, and stroke backgrounds, and critical-care paramedics with extensive aeromedical experience. We match the level of escort to the patient's condition: a nurse or paramedic for most cases, a physician when the clinical picture calls for one.

What every escort case includes

• Clinical assessment of fitness to fly before anything is booked
• Airline medical clearance (MEDIF), oxygen approval, and seating arranged directly with the carrier
• Flights on every leg booked by Fly CME, our IATA-accredited in-house travel agency
• Ground transport at both ends: ambulance, wheelchair or stretcher van, town car, or SUV
• In-flight medications, oxygen, and monitoring managed by the escort
• Hospital, rehab, or nursing-home admission coordinated before arrival
• Clear reporting to the family or case manager at every milestone

Domestic transfers and international repatriation

The same team handles a transfer between two US states and a repatriation across several countries. On international cases we add visa assistance where it's needed and coordinate every leg across borders, languages, and time zones, so the family or case manager only ever deals with us.

When an escort is the right choice, and when it isn't

A medical escort is appropriate when the patient is stable enough to fly on a scheduled airline. It is not a substitute for an air ambulance when a patient is critically unstable and needs an ICU in the air. Our clinical team assesses every case honestly and will tell you when an air ambulance is the right call.