Shreveport, Louisiana-headquartered Metro Aviation is celebrating one million flight hours, after the milestone was reached by a rotorcraft flying for Indiana University Health.

Metro has no reason to slow down on its celebrations. The company celebrated 40 years in 2022, and with this latest milestone, it says it is tapping the surface of what it accomplish over the next four decades.

“This is a huge accomplishment for the entire Metro family,” says Metro VP Todd Stanberry. “It's the continued commitment of not just our pilots and technicians, but our customers, their communication centres, our records department, admin and management, and the thousands of people that have trusted us over the years.”

As a purely traditional, family-owned air medical operator, Metro operates and maintains 170 aircraft for 43 aeromedical programmes across the country. Stanberry will tell you that it's the people that make it all possible.

“We do it different here,” Stanberry goes on. “There are incredible stories behind every minute of these one million flight hours. Within them, we have flown 704,228 patients who wouldn't have otherwise received the care they needed and deserved. But it doesn't stop there. The number of lives positively impacted as a result of all the work that went into flying that many hours is untold. From the first hour logged from a single-wide trailer in 1982 to the millionth hour logged, there have been thousands of folks involved, all working tirelessly and proudly. They don't do it because we told them to. They do it because they love it. I can't help but smile when I think about these amazing people. I hope everybody gets a chance to meet them.”