What Is Angel Flight Central, and How Can We Help You Get to Medical Care?
Welcome to Angel Flight Central! We’re so glad you’re here. Whether you’re looking for help getting to medical care, interested in volunteering, or simply curious about what we do, we’d love to introduce ourselves.
Angel Flight Central (AFC) is a nonprofit organization based in Kansas City that arranges free flights for children and adults traveling to medical care and for other humanitarian purposes. Since 1995, we have brought together volunteer pilots, passengers, and supporters to help make care far from home more accessible.
Our volunteer pilots donate their time, fuel, and aircraft to get passengers to and from their appointments, completely free of charge. Behind each flight is a team working together to help someone get where they need to be.
Last year, Angel Flight Central provided more than 2,600 flights, and this year, we’re on pace to arrange more flights than ever before. Behind those numbers are patients and families getting to appointments, returning for treatment, and making it back home.
Who does Angel Flight Central help?
AFC helps children and adults who need to travel far from home for medical care. The cost of airfare, the demands of a long drive, and the need to make the same trip repeatedly can make it difficult to reach the care they need.
We recognize that a medical need can create a financial need, regardless of someone’s income or background. There is no income cutoff to request our help. If getting to medical care is a challenge, we encourage you to reach out so we can explore how we may be able to help.
Passengers may fly with AFC for:
Cancer care, including chemotherapy and other treatment appointments.
Clinical trials that require travel to a participating medical center.
Preoperative and postoperative appointments, including evaluations and follow-up visits.
Care for rare diseases or complex conditions that require a specialist far from home.
Pediatric specialty care, helping children and their families reach the appropriate medical team.
Ongoing appointments, when repeated travel becomes difficult to manage.
Care outside a rural community, when the services a passenger needs are not available locally.
These are just a few examples. Our passengers travel for many different medical needs, and you do not need to have one of the conditions listed above to reach out.
Our work also includes other humanitarian flights, such as helping children attend specialized summer camps, supporting disaster relief efforts, delivering donated breast milk to rural neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), and transporting service dogs to training.
Every request is reviewed individually. If you’re unsure whether AFC can help, please give us a call! We would love to hear about your situation, answer your questions, and talk through the options with you.
Where do we help?
AFC primarily serves passengers who live in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
We help passengers in both rural communities and cities throughout this ten-state region. With volunteer pilots based at general aviation airports across the Midwest, flights can often begin closer to a passenger’s community. No matter how rural your community is, we encourage you to reach out. Our team can help identify nearby airports and explore transportation options.
Care does not always fall within state lines, or within our region. AFC also works with other charitable aviation organizations and airline partners to help coordinate travel beyond our primary service area. Let our team know where you live and where you need to go so we can review your request.
How do our free flights happen?
Our volunteer pilots make these flights possible by contributing their own time, fuel, aircraft, and flying expenses. They use their love for aviation to help passengers reach care, and neither the passenger nor AFC pays them for the flight.
Making a flight happen also takes planning, communication, and a team to bring everything together. AFC’s flight coordinators review requests, gather paperwork, discuss each passenger’s needs, choose suitable airports, and connect passengers with available volunteer pilots. Longer trips may involve multiple pilots, each flying part of the route, with our coordinators arranging how those flights connect.
Donations fund the flight services and day-to-day operations that make this coordination possible. Financial support keeps our team available to work with passengers, communicate with pilots, organize details, and help address changes along the way. Donations do not reimburse volunteer pilots for fuel or other flying expenses; pilots generously cover those costs themselves.
Donations also support our Assured Travel Program (ATP), which helps arrange backup transportation when weather or other unexpected circumstances cause a volunteer flight to be canceled at the last minute. This program gives our team another way to help passengers get to care when plans change.
Together, this support and our pilots’ generosity mean that every $1 donated helps create approximately $5.40 worth of free flight services. Pilots contribute the flying, and donors support the coordination and additional transportation options that help patients reach care.
How does our Southwest Airlines partnership help?
For trips that are too far for our volunteer pilots to fly, AFC may be able to arrange commercial air travel through our partnership with Southwest Airlines.
AFC receives donated tickets through the Southwest Airlines Medical Flight Network. Through this program, Southwest Airlines provides complimentary round-trip tickets to participating nonprofit hospitals and medical transportation organizations, including AFC, to help patients and caregivers reach medical care.
These donated tickets give us another way to help eligible passengers travel longer distances for treatment. Our flight coordinators review each request to determine whether Southwest Airlines travel is appropriate and available.
Passengers seeking assistance should apply through AFC so our team can review their needs and coordinate the next steps. We’re grateful to Southwest for helping patients and families get to care beyond the distances our volunteer flights can typically cover.
What should passengers know about flying with AFC?
AFC provides non-emergency transportation. We are not an air ambulance, and medical staff do not accompany passengers to provide care during the flight. Passengers must be medically stable and ambulatory (able to walk) and receive medical clearance from their doctor.
Most volunteer flights take place in smaller airplanes with four to six seats. Getting into one may look a little different from boarding a commercial flight. Depending on the airplane, you may need to step onto a wing two to three feet above the ground and lower yourself into the cabin. Passengers need to be able to walk and get into and out of the aircraft. Our coordinators will talk with you about your mobility and any assistance you may need so you know what to expect.
Passengers can also bring approved companions for support:
Passengers under 18: Up to two companions.
Passengers 18 and older: One companion.
The same companion limits apply to Southwest Airlines flights arranged through AFC. For volunteer flights, the passenger and all companions must have a combined weight of less than 500 pounds. Arrangements also depend on the individual aircraft’s space and weight capacity.
For volunteer flights, passengers may bring luggage totaling up to 50 pounds, packed in small, soft-sided bags.
A companion might be a parent, spouse, caregiver, relative, or friend. As you talk through your travel plans with a flight coordinator, you’ll discuss who you would like to bring and what arrangements are possible.
How do I request a flight?
Start by completing our online application. A flight coordinator will review your request to determine whether AFC is a good resource for your situation, then contact you by phone or email about the next steps. These include providing your appointment dates and obtaining a signed medical release.
Please allow 7–10 business days to arrange a flight. Applying early gives our team time to review the paperwork and coordinate transportation. It also gives your request more time on our flight board, where volunteer pilots can view available trips and choose the ones they can fly. The more time pilots have to see your request and plan for it, the better the chance of finding an available volunteer.
Because weather and other circumstances can affect flights, passengers must have a backup transportation plan. While our Assured Travel Program can help when unexpected cancellations occur, alternative transportation through AFC is not guaranteed.
Passengers are responsible for lodging and transportation between the airport and their appointments. Our Resources page includes other organizations that may be able to help with needs beyond the flight.
Call: 816-421-2300
How can I be part of AFC?
You don’t have to be a pilot to help someone get to care! You can support AFC by donating, volunteering, or sharing our information with someone who may need transportation assistance. Healthcare professionals, friends, and family members can all help connect a patient with our services.
If you are a pilot, we invite you to learn more about volunteering with AFC.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know Angel Flight Central. Follow along for stories about the passengers we help and the volunteer pilots who make these flights possible, and help us spread the word that free flights to care are available!
