Angel Flight West

Angel Flight West is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization that arranges free, non-emergency air travel for children and adults with serious medical conditions and other compelling needs.

As a loyal supporter, you already know so much about Angel Flight West. We deliver health and hope using donated flights to serve those with healthcare or other compelling human needs. In the air, Angel Flight West links volunteer pilots and commercial airlines with people whose non-emergency health needs require air transportation to access care. On the ground, volunteer drivers ferry passengers to and from their departure and destination airports. AFW plays a significant role in creating cost-effective access to health care for passengers who could not otherwise afford to travel to see specialists in other regions, or out of state. Our volunteer pilots donate the costs of all flights. There is never a charge for an Angel Flight West mission.

Since the Arizona Wing was formed in 1999, our Arizona pilots have completed more than 3,500 donated missions. And including flights flown by pilots from other Wings, nearly 3,000 Arizona residents have benefited from our life-changing services. People like 14-year-old Vy N. of Tucson. Vy's kidney disease required a transplant and monthly follow up visits at UCLA in Los Angeles. Her family subsists on a single income, and between expensive treatment and travel costs, their resources are extremely limited. Now, with AFW as her airline, Vy has made six round trip Angel Flights to Los Angeles and is on the runway to health, and we'll be here for as long as she needs us.

Although medical flights comprise the most significant portion of our missions, we are saving lives in other ways too. Volunteer pilots also provide transportation for humanitarian causes, including injured military personnel taking part in therapeutic programs offered by the Wounded Warrior Project, or individuals and families escaping domestic violence. Because not all healing takes place in the hospital, Angel Flight West also serves as the "official airline" for a number of children's special needs camps attended by youngsters and teens.

Our programs comprise three distinct, yet intersecting facets:

* Provide crucial transportation for patients facing health care and other humanitarian needs. Our services are a lifeline for people thousands of passengers who have come to count on AFW. The Mission Operations process is no less complicated than running a small airline. Our staff must be fluent in multiple "languages" -- health care, aviation, and technology.

* Serve as a resource to health care and social service providers. Angel Flight West is an invaluable resource for case managers and physicians. Nina F., a social worker at Children's Hospital Orange County, recently wrote: "I cannot thank you enough for your assistance in getting a flight for our family. I'm amazed at how quickly your agency was able to assemble and reach out to willing pilots. I don't know what we would have done without you."

* Offer an opportunity for innovative and meaningful volunteerism. AFW is unique in that our service delivery is performed entirely by volunteers in private aircraft. We now have a pilot and aircraft "fleet" that's double the size of Southwest Airlines. And in the words of one of our pilots, " Bar none, Angel Flight West has provided me the best reason I've ever had to fly a plane."

We also have many non-pilot volunteers who assist in the office, help with outreach and fundraising, and provide ground transportation through our Earth Angel program,which we are expanding to all of our Wings.

More than 70% of AFW passengers are ethnic or cultural minorities, at least 80% are designated at low- or poverty income level, and nearly half are youth or children.