The ePlane Company and Apollo Hospitals partner to bring India’s golden hour within reach. The two organisations signed an MOU in Chennai, announced at the Farnborough Airshow. The ePlane Company and Apollo Hospitals partner as India loses someone to a road accident every 3.5 minutes.
Over 170,000 lives are lost on Indian roads each year. As The ePlane Company and Apollo Hospitals partner to fix this, only 1 in 5 patients currently reach trauma care within the golden hour. Congestion and distance, not medical expertise, remain the real barriers to survival.
What the Partnership Brings
ePlane’s e200X electric air ambulances will handle trauma, cardiac and stroke transfers. The aircraft moves patients up to seven times faster than road transport. It costs a fraction of a traditional helicopter transfer too.
Amber Wings, ePlane’s drone subsidiary, will move blood, organs and medicines between facilities. Delivery times drop from hours to minutes with this system. Apollo’s network of 1,066 hospitals, clinics and pharmacies completes the connected response chain.
Left to Right: Aditya Reddy, Director, Apollo Hospitals Group; S. M. Krishnan, Senior Vice President – Finance & Company Secretary, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited; Suneeta Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited; Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder & CTO, The ePlane Company; and Karthik Reddy, Director, Apollo Hospitals Group, Divya Manchanda EVP Business Partnerships & AAM Strategy, The ePlane Company.
What Comes Next
Apollo has signalled intent to explore orders for both aircraft and drones. The MOU also leaves room for a future Apollo investment in ePlane. Both companies plan to work with India’s DGCA on regulatory approval.
Leadership on the Deal
Dr Prathap C Reddy, Apollo’s Chairman, said too many Indians lose their lives simply because help arrives too late. He called access, alongside clinical expertise, central to saving lives nationwide. Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, ePlane’s Founder and CTO, said every minute counts when a life hangs in the balance. He said the partnership could finally close the gap for Indians far from trauma care. Traffic has always been the real enemy in India’s emergency rooms. This time, someone’s finally trying to fly straight over it.
