Chapman Freeborn transports fire fighters to help tackle California wild fires
The recent wild fires in California have led to wide spread disruption and state wide devastation, over 50,000 residents have so far been evacuated and millions of acres have been burned, the efforts of firefighters across California are simply heroic.
On one of our recent charters in North America, the Chapman Freeborn passenger team flew 103 firefighters from Guadalajara, Mexico into San Bernardino, California aboard an Airbus A320-200.
However, due to the global covid-19 pandemic and the importance of the passengers on the flight, this was never going to be a straight forward air charter.
Being a single group of firefighters, the main objective was to separate them from the other passengers in the airport terminal. Upon arrival at the airport our passenger team arranged dedicated check-in counters for this flight only, not only that, but the next immediate check-in counters were also blocked off to increase the space between them and all other passengers in the terminal.
Chapman Freeborn passenger team went a step further to ensure the safety of the firefighters and arranged for the adjoining gates to be out of use, while they proceeded through the gate to board the aircraft.
On arrival into San Bernardino, a private terminal was organized for the group to pass through. No passengers other than the firefighters were present in the terminal. They were welcomed in arrivals by a small team of authorities.
It was another charter that ran like clockwork in such unprecedented times. From when the enquiry was submitted on the Saturday, our passenger team worked tirelessly through the weekend to present back to the client on the Monday. The contracts where approved on Tuesday afternoon with the flight taking off less than 24 hours later.
Adnan Rahal, Chapman Freeborn Passenger Charter Broker adds:
“It can be a challenge to organize an international charter for 100 plus passengers with as little as a day’s notice, but with great communication and cooperation from the airport authorities on both ends and the airline we were able to make it happen.
We were able to operate the flight successfully and on time, and protect our passengers by creating a bubble and mitigating any risks of exposure to Covid-19, not only to themselves, but also to everyone on the front lines fighting the fires throughout California.”
