Chris Kjelgaard

Some 16 years ago, Lufthansa first deployed a patient transport compartment (PTC) on a long-haul aircraft to transport an emergency patient on an intercontinental flight. Now, the airline has taken delivery of two new PTCs for its Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental fleets. The units have been developed and made by the German airline’s Lufthansa Technik subsidiary (Hall 2c Stand C358). This means the carrier can offer a flying intensive-care unit on all long-haul flights from and to its Frankfurt and Munich hubs.

 


Lufthansa has long had three Lufthansa Technik-developed PTCs of an earlier design available for its A330-300, A340-300, A340-600 and Boeing 747-400 fleets. Typically, at each of its two hubs, Lufthansa makes four or five aircraft of each long-haul fleet type capable of accepting a PTC installation, according to Prof. Dr. Uwe Stüben, who recently retired after many years of service as Lufthansa’s medical director. Stüben oversaw development of the PTC designs and is responsible for many other Lufthansa aeromedical innovations.

 


Development of the PTC for the A380 required Lufthansa to re-certify the type, because the main-deck floor of each A380 identified for PTC capability had to be strengthened. Compared with the previous PTC design, Lufthansa Technik’s new PTC has a new, larger patient bed, more working space for the accompanying intensive-care doctor and paramedic, and updated medical equipment.

 


Each PTC (old and new) replaces 16 economy seats–four rows of four seats–in the between-aisles section of an aircraft’s economy cabin. The compartment has its own walls and is modular.

 


It takes two hours to install a PTC because the aircraft needs to be fitted temporarily with oxygen-discharge lines. However, aircraft-scheduling considerations mean Lufthansa’s Aeromedical Center needs 24-to-72 hours’ notice of a customer requiring the PTC service, depending on the destinations involved.

 


Most customers for Lufthansa’s PTC flying intensive-care service are health and travel insurers, according to Stüben. Even though hiring a PTC for an intercontinental flight costs between $35,000-$74,000, insurers find it less expensive than hiring an air ambulance executive jet.

 


Additionally, each PTC is a fully functional intensive-care unit. It offers the same monitoring capabilities as a hospital ICU, all required medicines and life-support equipment, and 12,000 liters of oxygen. Each PTC is certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency to withstand forces of 16G.

 


Also, Lufthansa’s long-haul commercial aircraft usually have greater range than most air ambulances. The PTC takes up only a relatively small part of a Lufthansa aircraft performing normal intercontinental scheduled service.

 


This arrangement means the Lufthansa aircraft flies the patient non-stop from major airport to major airport, along with his/her accompanying intensive care doctor and a Lufthansa Medical Service paramedic–usually a specially trained flight attendant, who, for any planned PTC-carrying flight inbound to Germany, travels to the departure city 24 hours in advance. The paramedic arrives a day in advance “to make sure it is possible” to transport the severely ill PTC patient and then to arrange the necessary transportation and customs and immigration clearances to allow the patient to be brought directly aboard the Lufthansa aircraft.

 


A Lufthansa non-stop intercontinental flight can cut 50 percent off the time an air ambulance service would take to transport an intensive-care patient, Stüben estimates. Usually the patient is kept anaesthetized throughout the flight and is transferred between the aircraft and local emergency-medical transportation on a “wing to wing” basis.

 


Each PTC patient is stabilized in an intensive care unit near where he or she has suffered the health crisis and then transported to his/her home country or to where the patient can receive longer-term treatment.

 


The patient and medical team boards the aircraft along with the flight attendants, in advance of other passengers, but at the destination, the patient is transferred from the aircraft after all other passengers have disembarked. Stüben reckons Lufthansa carries “70 to 100” PTC patients annually.

 


Lufthansa is unique as an airline in offering the PTC service, but Stüben confirmed Lufthansa Technik has sold PTCs to military customers–among them the German air force and the U.S. Army–and to several private customers for which it has performed VVIP aircraft completions.

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