Air India Signs MoU to Revolutionize Healthcare Logistics With eVTOL

Representative image rendering of medical air

Air India has signed a landmark MoU with Japan’s SkyDrive and Suzuki Motor Corporation to study the use of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for medical air logistics in India, said Air India in a press release. 

India’s urban centers grapple with relentless traffic congestion, posing serious obstacles to time‑critical medical logistics. By merging SkyDrive’s cutting‑edge eVTOL technology with Air India’s operational expertise and Suzuki’s deep understanding of the Indian market, the three companies aim to pioneer last‑mile emergency medical transport solutions—advancing the nation’s healthcare infrastructure and saving crucial minutes when lives are at stake.

To recall, late last month Apollo Hospitals and The ePlane Company also inked an MoU to deploy electric air ambulances and drones, bridging India’s golden hour trauma care gap. Prior to this, in the same month India's healthcare body ICMR’s i‑DRONE study shows that drones-enabled transport cut TB diagnosis time from 15 to 5 days and reduce patient costs by 99%, transforming rural healthcare access. All these developments in medical air logistics happen in couple of weeks' timeframe. 

Key Highlights of the Air India-SkyDrive-Suzuki MoU

• Partnership Scope: Air India, SkyDrive, and Suzuki will jointly assess the feasibility of deploying eVTOL aircraft for time-sensitive medical logistics in India.
• Focus Area: The study targets transportation of high-value, perishable medical supplies such as blood, organs, and emergency medicines, especially in congested metros.
• Technology Contribution: SkyDrive brings its eVTOL aircraft expertise, Air India contributes operational and airport infrastructure knowledge, while Suzuki provides deep market insights into India.
• Strategic Importance: The initiative strengthens India’s medical infrastructure by enabling last-mile emergency logistics, reducing delays where “every minute counts.”

Signing ceremony 

Representative image rendering of medical air logistics utilizing eVTOL aircraft in India (Image ~ airindia.com) 

Statements from Leaders

• Ramesh Mamidala (Air India Cargo Head): Advanced air mobility is a “natural extension” of India’s transport ecosystem, and this collaboration reflects a shared ambition to solve real-world challenges.
• Tomohiro Fukuzawa (SkyDrive CEO): Chronic congestion in India makes eVTOLs ideal for medical logistics, potentially saving lives by cutting transit times.
• Masao Fujitani (Suzuki Executive): Highlighted Suzuki’s philosophy of “Sho-Sho-Kei-Tan-Bi” (Smaller, Fewer, Lighter, Shorter, Neater) as aligned with SkyDrive’s eVTOL design.

Comparison: Air India vs. IndiGo in Advanced Air Mobility

Air India	IndiGo
Focus on medical logistics	Focus on urban passenger mobility
Partners: SkyDrive (Japan), Suzuki (Japan)	Partners: Archer Aviation (US), Sarla Aviation (India)
Goal: Reduce transit times for critical healthcare supplies	Goal: Develop air taxi services in Indian cities
Tata Group backing, leveraging cargo & airport expertise	Strong domestic market presence, exploring futuristic passenger services

Risks & Challenges

• Regulatory hurdles: India’s aviation authorities must establish safety and certification frameworks for eVTOL operations.
• Infrastructure readiness: Airports and hospitals need integration points for eVTOL landing and dispatch.
• Scalability: Initial feasibility studies may face challenges in scaling operations across diverse terrains.
• Competition: Rival airlines like IndiGo are already exploring passenger-focused eVTOL services, intensifying the race.

The ePlane Co. and Apollo Hospitals Partner to Launch Electric Air Ambulances and Medical Drones

• Together, the two organizations aim to close the gap between accident and treatment connecting victims to trauma care in minutes, not hours.

Following a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Chennai, India, and announced today at the Farnborough International Airshow, UK, The ePlane Company and Apollo Hospitals have joined forces to address a critical healthcare challenge: every 3.5 minutes, someone in India dies in a road accident. With over 170,000 lives lost on Indian roads each year, and only 1 in 5 patients reaching trauma care within the critical "golden hour," urban congestion and geographic distance remain some of the biggest barriers to survival - not the absence of medical expertise.

To help close this gap, Ubifly Technologies Private Limited ("The ePlane Company") and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring electric air ambulances and medical delivery drones into India's emergency healthcare system, connecting emergency patients across high-density urban corridors and remote access areas directly to the trauma care they need, without the delays of urban traffic or the expense of traditional helicopter transfers.
Why the Golden Hour Matters

For trauma, cardiac, and stroke patients, the first hour after an emergency often determines the difference between recovery and tragedy. Yet today, patients frequently lose that hour to traffic, distance, and the need to stabilize at any nearby facility before being moved again to specialized trauma care thereby losing precious time. This collaboration is designed to change that with a faster, more direct path from the point of emergency to definitive care.
A New Kind of Emergency Network

The ePlane Company's Air Ambulance (Image - eplane.ai) 

The collaboration brings together air and road ambulance network complementing one another::

• Electric Air Ambulances: ePlane's e200X aircraft, designed for rapid inter-hospital transfers, trauma response, cardiac and stroke emergencies, and organ transport, moving patients up to 7 times faster than road transport - at a fraction of the cost of a traditional helicopter transfer. 
• Medical Delivery Drones: Through its subsidiary Amber Wings, ePlane's unmanned aerial vehicles are designed to rapidly move blood products, organs, vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic samples between facilities - cutting critical delivery times from hours to minutes.

Apollo’s Network of 1066 ambulances, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and diagnostic centers,

A combination of above, creates the foundation for a connected emergency response system - one that could bring life-saving care to some of India's most congested and difficult to access cities.

Looking Ahead

As part of the collaboration, Apollo has indicated its intent to examine the possibility for orders for e200x air ambulances and Amber Wings' medical delivery drones. The MOU also outlines the possibility of a future strategic investment by Apollo in ePlane, subject to future agreement on terms. Both parties intend to work with India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation and other relevant authorities to help bring this vision to life, alongside continued discussions on infrastructure needed to support these operations.

"India loses far too many lives simply because help cannot arrive in time," said Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group. "As the founder of Apollo Hospitals, which pioneered India's private healthcare model, I have long believed that access, along with deep clinical expertise - is what saves lives. This collaboration with The ePlane Company reflects our commitment to bringing Apollo's clinical excellence to every corner of the country, however remote."

"Every minute matters when someone's life is on the line," said Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder & CTO of The ePlane Company. "Working with Apollo Hospitals allows us to explore how our electric aircraft and drones can help close the gap between accident and treatment, especially for the millions of Indians living far from specialized trauma care."

About The ePlane Company

Founded in 2019 and incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Incubation Cell, The ePlane Company (Ubifly Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) is India's leading deep-tech aerospace manufacturer pioneering the global transition to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). Headquartered at the 163-acre IIT Madras Discovery Campus in Thaiyur, Chennai, the company operates the nation's first and only dedicated 60,000+ square foot integrated electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototyping, manufacturing, and testing facility.

The company is the first private aerospace entity in India to receive a formal Design Organisation Approval (DOA) from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for electric aircraft, and its flagship e200X vehicle is the first eVTOL accepted into the DGCA's official Type Certification pipeline. Backed by over 10,000+ kilometers of cumulative physical flight testing across its ATVA and e50 technology demonstrators, ePlane specializes in high-efficiency, zero-emission aviation architectures tailored explicitly for high-density urban corridors.

Utilizing its patented global "Synergistic Lift" technology, ePlane engineers its aircraft around an ultra-compact 8x11 meter footprint, removing the need for specialized vertiports and unlocking immediate rooftop scalability using standard existing municipal helipads. Backed by world-class institutional capital (Speciale Invest, Antares Ventures, Naval Ravikant) and guided by an elite board of global aviation veterans, The ePlane Company is commercializing a modular airframe built to transform three key multi-billion-dollar verticals globally: high-frequency passenger Air Taxis, critical Air Ambulances, and middle-mile Urban Cargo networks.

For more technical information, explore www.eplane.ai.

About Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd (AHEL) revolutionised healthcare when Dr Prathap Reddy started the first hospital in Chennai in 1983. Today, AHEL is the world's largest integrated healthcare platform with over 10,400 beds across 76 hospitals, 6,600+ pharmacies, 264 clinics, 2,182 diagnostic centres, and 800+ telemedicine centres. It is one of the world's leading cardiac centres, having performed over 3,00,000 angioplasties and 2,00,000 surgeries. AHEL’s 1,20,000 family members are dedicated to delivering exceptional care and leaving the world better than we found it.

RED.Health (Formerly StanPlus) Launches Air Ambulance Services in 550+ Cities With 25+ Aircrafts

RED.Health launches air ambulance services across 550+ cities in India, even in areas which are inaccessible to airports

• Introduces air ambulance to address three fundamental values of Emergency Medical Services: reliability, speed, and empathy.
• RED.Health aircrafts are designed to perform critical evacuations such as BiPAP, Ventilator, ECMO transfers or medically and surgically critical patients

RED.Health, India’s largest medical emergency response platform has recently expanded its offerings to launch Air Ambulance services. The RED.Health Air Ambulance service is now available to provide state-of-the-art medical emergency services with robust technology across 550+ cities in India via air. RED.Health aims to integrate an extremely fragmented market of Air Ambulance into one platform to streamline cost variations and enable a committed team that can evacuate a patient safely through clinical expertise.

RED.Health has a fleet of 8 specialised aircrafts that can evacuate patients from any terrain or geography of the nation timely and efficiently. RED Air Guardian not only enables air transfer for medical emergencies; but also ensures surface transport to and from the airport. We manage 25+ aircrafts parked on the airports all across India and 10+ aircrafts parked in different parts of the world, to cater to overseas air evacuation. While we are accessible to most parts of India, we actively do air evacuations from cities like Raipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR; and parts of Middle eastern countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Doha.

Air Guardian maintains the highest level of care and clinical proficiency while evacuating each patient to the specialised medical facility. All the ambulances are equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, defined SOPs, Clinical Pathways, an excellent Medico-legal framework, and a team of highly qualified Critical Care professionals.

Commenting on the development, Prabhdeep Singh, Founder & CEO, RED.Health said, "At RED.Health we take pride in reaching the patient in just 15 minutes. Taking a step forward, we are now equipped to save more and more lives in parts of the country where specialised or robust medical facilities are unavailable. Our Air Ambulance service can assist patients who need to be transferred long distance in case of emergency to a specialised medical facility. Our Team constantly strives to be efficient and empathetic, which not only makes our services faster but also ensures zero casualties in a field where the entire medical industry is competing for the best patient experience and dependability. We are determined to advance our goal of creating 911 for Indian healthcare with this new endeavour”.

RED AIR Guardian now has the ability to use helicopters to transport patients from challenging and inaccessible areas and perform services like Repatriation, Bed to Bed transfer, Airport to Airport transfer, Rural evacuation, remote evacuation even without having access to the airports. The highly effective team is equipped with state-of-the-art clinical pathways and evacuation protocols, and the medical director on board is an expert in cardiac anaesthesia and critical care to ensure safety of a patient.

RED.Health vows to reach emergencies in less than 15 minutes. The company aims to achieve the core pillars of response technologies during emergencies: access, triage, destination selection, and vital sharing. The Hyderabad-based startup has partnered with 100+ hospitals and 70+ enterprises and is looking to expand to 600+ cities and towns in India by the end of this year, a step towards providing a robust medical emergency response to people across the country.

About RED.Health:

RED.Health is India's largest medical emergency response platform working 24/7 to solve the emergency response with the use of technology and trained personnel. RED.Health is backed by a multi-city fleet of 6000+ ambulances with top-of-the-line equipment for critical and non-critical care. RED.Health envisions solving the classic 3As of Indian healthcare that is, awareness, affordability, and access. RED.Health has already partnered with 50+ hospitals and 70+ enterprises to manage their medical response systems. The company is also looking for expansion to serve patient transportation needs across and densely in the country.