Airlink’s Call To Action:
Responsible Humanitarianism Starts with Logistics
In February, I represented Airlink at the AirCargo Conference 2025 in Dallas, Texas, to speak about how businesses can make a difference in humanitarian logistics. Glyn Hughes, Director General of TIACA, Brian Bourke, Global Chief Commercial Officer of Seko Logistics, and Sam Mendenhall, VP of Cargo Operations for American Airlines, joined me in a conversation on stage to an engaged audience.
Our talk weaved through a number of factors and challenges that span our sectors and generate our greatest amount of headaches; but we kept circling back to the importance of safety regulations and risk management in both creating trust and looking out for one another.
Airlink, like dozens of other organizations, saw its first response in 2010 when the devastating earthquake struck Haiti, causing massive destruction that levelled their infrastructure and required a global response to nourish and heal the population. And Airlink, like those organizations, learned a lot of lessons from that first response.
There was an immediate surge in people who wanted to help: Haiti, the small country in the Caribbean relentlessly bombarded by inclement weather and conflict, had been shaken to its core. The results were initially seen as an incredible feat of global unity in the name of, what everyone believed, to be helping Haitians: millions of pounds of clothing, donated food, and home replacement items were shipped to an airport that was torn apart from the earthquake.
What followed next was an eye-opening realization: much of the “aid” sat on the hot tarmac with nowhere to go, because it simply wasn’t needed, or because of poor organization and lack thereof of prioritizations, eventually, the donations deteriorated, and became another burden on the already-strained nation amidst one of the biggest recovery efforts in their history.
Responding organizations worked through after-action reports and came to confront an unfortunate truth: sometimes doing or sending the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing. Collective insistence on helping had perhaps applied pressures or harms upon the fragile infrastructure. We needed to come together and rethink the way we approach humanitarian aid delivery and disaster response at large.
At first glance it seemed like a daunting problem to solve, and even harder to coordinate across hundreds of international NGOs keen to assist. The strategy that emerged became the core of how Airlink operated and what we prioritized in our logistics strategy.
Airlink turned its focus to fostering partnerships, especially those that were strategically placed around the world, and had grassroots operations or representatives where conflict and disasters arise. These on-the-ground coordinations, informed and often led by the local communities, became the focal point of which we center our strategy around: those who are closest and impacted, are the best ones to inform exactly what materials and resources people need. From there, the NGOs will procure the items and put in a request through Airlink to deliver.
The concept starts broadly, but quickly comes down to logistics. Airlink carefully vets the NGOs to ensure they are reliable organizations, and the request itself, to ensure the materials being delivered are the highest priority items. We do this through multiple layers of vetting, and have additional screening measures for sensitive countries. These checks are imperative to foster trust between Airlink and its partners – both NGO and in aviation – and between Airlink and its donors.
Simply put: Airlink seeks to drive responsible and effective action when it comes to disaster response. Airlink upholds strict values when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid; the aid must be proven to be needed at the site of the disaster, and the NGOs must be vetted and must have proven, trusted contacts on-the-ground, ready to receive the resources upon arrival.
Nobody wants the wrong materials to be delivered and sitting on a tarmac, turning into waste. Nobody wants the right materials to fall into the wrong hands. Nobody wants to deliver goods that are sent at the wrong time, or when the moment of need has passed. It’s a delicate balance of demand and supply, in that order.
Airlink’s promise is a transparent process in the delivery of humanitarian aid and responders. We know our partners through and through. We meticulously review the aid being sent in each shipment for accuracy and international safety accordance. We align with all CSR, sustainable, and safety regulations in business and commercial operations. Cargo and commercial airlines are especially wary of risk management and keeping tight on strict safety measures – they have to, and we need them to. And, when airlines can only take us so far, Airlink has a network of freight forwarders who are prepared to deliver the aid across the “last mile,” to see that the aid arrives safely. Once it’s delivered, we require a report to show how the materials were received, distributed, and implemented. There are some sensitive materials and locations that we also recognize require another level of safety in approach and respect the need for sensitivity and security.
It’s not an easy, nor a cheap, process. Few can afford to launch an aircraft, much less the several that it takes to send all responders and aid to a community in need. We consolidate the cargo, and with our partners check weights and dimensions, and associated hazardous material paperwork. Cargo and commercial airlines operate in knowing every inch and every ounce that makes up their space, and Airlink, in turn, respects their operations and looks for room to fill, and with only what is allowed, so as not to compromise or implicate anyone involved. Airlink does not support the sending of any non–humanitarian resources, including military materials or non-essential items.
We make transportation affordable for our NGO partners, in massive thanks of gratitude to the airline and freight-forwarding partners who willingly lend their space and resources so we can get from Point A to Points B, C, all the way through to Z. Roughly 73% of an NGO’s entire budget is estimated, on average, to go toward the supply chain: procurement, shipment, and storage of aid. Airlink works to alleviate that cost, so NGOs can focus on what they do best: implementation and helping humanity. And when a route or a partner can’t accommodate a request, we charter planes – whatever it takes to get the right aid to the right place at the right time.
Airlink does this domestically in the United States, where we were founded and are based, and internationally. We have learned lessons and improved our strategy through global crises like Ebola, COVID-19, and rampant hurricane and cyclone seasons. Throughout it all, we have heard again and again that we saved an NGO money, time, eliminated inefficiencies and waste, and empowered our partners to scale their responses. The fastest we have delivered aid is within 18 hours of a request. There are few accolades for delivery – our partners are often the unsung heroes in the world’s greatest humanitarian strifes and challenges. But the greatest reward is not a trophy, but of peace of mind that the world will be healthier and safer, because of a shipment that arrived on time.
Creativity is a talent that is needed in a business like ours. With constantly changing dynamics, inefficient routes, suddenly closed borders, abrupt weather changes, Airlink remains flexible and in constant communication with partners and those grassroots representatives to get a clear picture of what it’s like in the region and finding alternative solutions. Over time, we have developed solid partnerships with airlines and logistics companies who know that when we come to them with a request, we have done our homework and have a plan that won’t interrupt their routes, shipments, or business operations. We are simply coming along for the ride, on a mission to help save the world.
We strive to be part of the solution, and not to create more problems. We want to avoid creating a “second disaster” that burdens a recovering community in crisis. Our goal is to be responsible when it comes to humanitarian response. We do that through building the trust and reliance upon one another, and through transparency and a set of guidelines established through years of lessons learned and expertise out in the field — and in the air.
There are opportunities and needs for all of us to put our complementary skills and resources together to fill the gaps in today’s society and in humanitarian support around the world. Our sector is forever changed; it is losing funding and public support. Even under intense scrutiny, Airlink passes all audits and standards — setting the bar higher for the humanitarian response sector at large. But disasters aren’t going to disappear or be put on pause while we collectively sort our financial shortcomings. What can you do?
Contact us. Get connected and help us understand what we might be able to do with you. If you have trucks, planes, boats, or representatives ready to help us forward critical freight to communities in crisis, let us know. We are looking to broaden our network so we can create more airbridges and find creative solutions to deliver aid where it has been historically at an impasse. If you are an NGO that needs help reaching a remote or overlooked community, we can come together and find a route to them.
We connect the dots, and you connect the destinations. At Airlink, nothing is impossible: because we make it so.