To make travel easier for critical and bedridden patients, the Airport Authority of India has now equipped 14 of its airports with ambulifts. This will facilitate flyers with reduced mobility, Divyang passengers on wheelchairs and stretchers under the Accessible India Campaign.

Twenty such ambulifts have been procured by AAI for those airports which do not have aerobridge facilities.

Significantly, these ambulifts have been manufactured indigenously under the Make in India policy.

The airports which will have this facility include Dehradun, Gorakhpur, Patna, Bagdogra, Darbhanga, Imphal, Vijayawada, Port Blair, Jodhpur, Belgaum, Silchar, Jharsuguda, Rajkot and Hubli. By the end of the month six more airports where this system will be operational are Dimapur, Jorhat, Leh, Jamnagar, Bhuj and Kanpur.

Each of the ambulift will cater to six wheelchairs and two stretchers with an attendant at a time. These vehicles are fitted with heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems.

Ambulift facility will be made available at a nominal token charge to the operating airlines at AAI airports.