Training and Workforce
How Grounded Crew Members Helped Rescue France in the Pandemic
Aviation Sans Frontières coordinated unprecedented volunteer mobilization between the aviation and healthcare industries in 2020
aircraft crew
In 2020, Aviation Sans Frontières mobilized grounded aircraft crews to assist overwhelmed hospitals and healthcare services across France.

It was mid-2020, and the Covid-19 pandemic was escalating across Europe. Every morning, Vadim Feldzer’s phone rang. On the other end: a hospital executive from AP-HP, the network of public hospitals serving Paris. The calls always carried the same urgency—and the same impossible ask: Find us more volunteers. Find anyone who can help. The French hospital system was collapsing under Covid-19’s first wave, and the executive was running out of options.

“He was calling me every day, every day at eight,” recalled Feldzer, head of global communications at Dassault Falcon. “He was so desperate to find people. He needed people.”