German air ambulance operator FAI rent-a-jet has acquired a third Learjet 55, boosting its fleet to six aircraft. Its fleet, wholly dedicated to medevac, now consists of two Learjet 35As, three 55s and a Citation 550.

The company says FAI's latest LR55 previously was owned by Aegean Airlines of Greece. Two of the LR55s are under long-term contract with the U.N. in Africa, while the rest of the fleet is operating out of FAI's Nuernberg homebase.

FAI has just doubled its hangar-space at Nuernberg airport to more than 1000 sq. m. "This allows us to perform maintenance on up to four aircraft simultaneously," says a company spokeswoman.

The LR55 acquisition is to keep pace with demand following a busy 2006. More than 500 air ambulance missions were flown from the beginning of the year to mid-December to destinations in 96 countries. This involved a total of almost 5,000 flying hours.

FAI's Nuernberg operations centre handled over 4,200 air ambulance flight requests. This represented a global value of E120 million from 279 worldwide clients.

The company is claiming a first, making pre-hospital emergency bronchoscopy available on its flights. "We made this decision for the sake of patient safety, given the high proportion of sometimes very critically ill patients we are called on to transport."