Ambulance flights from Malaga Airport

Malaga airport recorded a total of 865 “ambulance” flights last year, that is, those in which patients or organs ready for transplants are often urgently carried.

Of the total numbers, 435 were arrivals and 430 were departures. These flights transferred body organs of more than 1200 patients: 695 arrived and 582 left from the Malaga facilities, as reported by Aena Airports in a very recent statement.

Most of these operations connected Spanish airports, especially the airport of Melilla, as well as flights connecting with Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla, among other cities. However, Malaga airport was also involved in “ambulance” flights to and from different airports in parts of Europe, such as Luxembourg, Stockholm, UK or Germany.

Such flights transfer patients and organs for use in transplants. In fact, because of their facilitating this effort, the Andalusian airports, including Malaga airport received recognition from the Ministry of Health of the Government of Andalucía in late 2008

Back then, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 10,000 transplants and 25,000 tissue transplants performed in Andalucía since 1978, the regional government wanted to distinguish "commendable" collaboration of Andalusian airports, which, as everyone involved in the transplant process, constitute "an important link in a chain whose ultimate goal is to save lives and to improve the quality of life of people”.