The Heart of Aviation: Volunteer Pilots Making a Difference

In this inspiring episode of The Open Skies Podcast, host Chris Glass sits down with Kristina De Marzio, Hope Air’s Manager of Community Engagement, to explore the crucial role of volunteer pilots in providing life-saving travel for patients in need. Kristina shares how Hope Air works with hospitals, social workers, and medical professionals to identify patients facing insurmountable travel barriers and connects them with free flights through generous commercial airline partners and volunteer pilots.

With only 41 active volunteer pilots across Canada, Hope Air is actively seeking more aviators to expand their reach in underserved areas like Northern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Kristina highlights heartwarming patient stories—children seeing their homes from the sky for the first time, families avoiding exhausting multi-day drives, and patients making it home in time for the holidays. This episode is a call to action for pilots and supporters alike, showing how aviation can be a force for good in ensuring healthcare access for all.

Transcript

Chris Glass: 0:00

And we're back on the Open Skies podcast. I am with Christina DiMarzio and it's amazing that I got that name right, because I've been practicing for about five minutes to make sure I did. You are the manager of community engagement.

Kristina De Mrzio: 0:13

That's it, so tell me about that role. Yeah, so I wear a lot of different hats. At HOPE Air I work with a lot of our patient stories, our referral network, which is like social workers and hospitals and nurses and that kind of thing. Just to spread more word about Hope Air, I dabble in a little bit of government advocacy depending on which province we're in, but I think the one you're probably most interested in is our volunteer pilot program. So I manage the recruitment and just all of our communications with our volunteer pilots.

Chris Glass: 0:40

Excellent. So all of the pilots that are listening right now, this one is going to hit you pretty hard because we're coming for you to be a part of this program. One of the things that we were talking about after, before we started rolling, was the involvement of the hospital. So when somebody is going to use Hope Air, what's the first touch point in most cases?

Kristina De Mrzio: 1:05

Yeah. So a lot of times people don't know about us, and so what usually happens is either they've experienced some kind of traumatic medical event, like a heart attack, where they get medevaced to whatever hospital they need to, or their doctor will refer them to another hospital in another city, and so now either they travel by themselves or the referring doctor will share information about Hope Air. If they do have to travel by themselves, we have connections with a lot of the major hospitals all across the country, and so, whether it's the social worker or the nurses, they'll just go and say hey, I recognize, you live 700 kilometers from here. Do you know about Hope Air? Or how are you traveling back and forth? Or there's even patients that will say well, if I have to come back every two or three weeks or every month, I just can't afford it. So then that's kind of where nurses or social workers will share information about Hope Air, give them a pamphlet or whatever, and then they can just contact us directly.

Chris Glass: 1:57

So logistically right, there's got to be some stories where it just doesn't line up city pair wise right, like I'm in a community five, 600 kilometers away and it's tough for me to get to that station because there's no available air travel. So walk me through that process, walk me through those stories.

Kristina De Mrzio: 2:15

Yeah. So we have a lot of them all across the country because there's a lot of communities that are not serviced or serviced regularly by commercial airlines. So that's kind of where our volunteer pilot program comes in. So one route specifically is, let's say, cranbrook to Kelowna. It's about a four hour drive. But if somebody can't drive, they don't have a car, they just can't drive medically and they have to fly. In order to fly commercially from Cranbrook you either have to travel to Calgary or Vancouver, layover and then fly to Kelowna. So what would be a four-hour drive now turns into an eight-hour flying day. So with our volunteer pilots they can just fly right into the regional airport of Cranbrook, fly you right into Kelowna, you don't have to worry about layovers or anything. So it really it benefits the patients. It makes it just so much easier for him. 100 so%.

Chris Glass: 3:03

So let's talk about the volunteer pilot program, because I think when I started learning about Hope Air and I started doing research, this was part of the coolest thing that I saw. So talk to me about the volunteer pilot program and what's it all about?

Kristina De Mrzio: 3:20

Yeah, and I might be biased, but I think the volunteer program is the heart of the organization, because oftentimes, you know, and our commercial airline partners are fantastic, but oftentimes when patients are traveling, they don't meet anybody from Hope Air, and so it's usually our volunteer pilots that will go and meet them right at the airport, pick them up and be that direct Hope Air contact to get them where they need to be, be that direct Hope Air contact to get them where they need to be. And so I guess, like no matter where they are, whether it's you know, our pilots will fly into a commercial airport. You're in small regional airport strips, because sometimes patients live three or four or six hours away from a commercial airport, but they have a regional airport so they can fly right into those smaller communities. Pick up the patients, meet them, give them the whole rundown and make sure that they're comfortable before they get on the plane and then fly them to where they need to be.

Chris Glass: 4:08

And, to be clear, these are pilots who have their own aircraft and are volunteering their own time and their own metal, their own machine to get people back and forth.

Kristina De Mrzio: 4:19

Exactly yeah. And a lot of times our pilots aren't all retired either. Some of them are still working and they'll just, you know, sneak co-pair missions in when they can. But you know, we have a mix of both.

Chris Glass: 4:30

Wow, just padding the logbook with a couple extra hours.

Kristina De Mrzio: 4:33

Exactly, exactly. It makes it for a more fun mission than a $100 burner.

Chris Glass: 4:38

So how many volunteer pilots do you have roughly? You don't have to give me exact numbers, it's just a rough estimate.

Kristina De Mrzio: 4:43

Yeah, currently, roughly. You don't have to give me exact numbers, it's just a rough estimate. Yeah, currently I think we have 41 or 42 pilots across the country and is it balanced east west or north south? Yeah, we have a lot more pilots in ontario. Uh, for sure, we have a lot of pilots in bc and we're just growing the program in saskatchewan and alberta right now excellent, okay, so if I'm a pilot, I have my own plane.

Chris Glass: 5:04

I have have some time. How do I get involved? How do I help?

Kristina De Mrzio: 5:07

Yeah, so on our website there under the FAQ section of our volunteer pilot program, you have to have minimum requirements of hours. So just like pick hours, you know total hours on your current aircraft, that kind of thing just to make sure that it aligns with our insurance. But on our website there's the application form. It's just you just tell us what your hours are and then after that, if you do meet our minimums, then there's a full application process just to make sure that you know you meet our insurance requirements and that everything is okay before we bring you on. And our pilots also need a vulnerable sector check because they are dealing with our patients.

Chris Glass: 5:41

And then there's a board that looks at that pilot and approves it.

Kristina De Mrzio: 5:50

Oh yeah, so we have our pilot review committee, which is actually made up of some of our volunteer pilots and some of our retired volunteer pilots, but they have all walks of life. So we have some commercial pilots that are on that committee, some pilots that had their experience in the army, that had their experience in the Army, and some private pilots. So it kind of makes up a wide array of knowledge, just so that we know we can bring in the right people and the right experience.

Chris Glass: 6:13

See, one of the things we've always tried to do with this podcast is show kind of a hidden side of aviation, and I don't think there's gets more hidden than this, because most people don't know this exists.

Kristina De Mrzio: 6:23

Yeah.

Chris Glass: 6:23

Tell me the impact of what a volunteer pilot can do for a northern community that maybe doesn't have the air travel, or even communities that are just not close to the hospitals they need to be in. What kind of impact can they make?

Kristina De Mrzio: 6:39

Yeah, so, for example, a community like Sioux Lookout I don't know if you know where that is. It's like four hours Sound out today.

Kristina De Mrzio: 6:46

Yeah, it's like four hours north of Thunder Bay. So they have a regional airstrip but no very few commercial flights. So a community like that, our volunteer pilots which we do have a couple up there, but they'll fly into communities like Red Lake or Sioux Lookout and pick up patients and bring them either to Thunder Bay for the closest hospital, or into Toronto if they need. Well, I guess not into Toronto because that might be a bit far or even communities like Timmins. They don't have a direct flight to Ottawa. You'd have to come into Toronto and then lay over and go to Ottawa. So you really just remove the difficulty for the patients, you provide a friendly face and it's just like I said, it's the heart of the organization. You just have this like kind, friendly person who just kind of holds your hand from the airport and brings you to where you need to be. I know sometimes if people have never been into Toronto City Centre, especially Billy Bishop, they have no idea where they're going. They're like I'm on an island how do I get to land?

Kristina De Mrzio: 7:42

You know, so some of our volunteer pilots will just will walk them over or take the ferry over with them to say like okay, this is where you pick up your Uber and this is where you can go, and kind of just show them that way.

Chris Glass: 7:52

Wow, take them from the aircraft all the way to the hospital. That's so crazy. Yeah, so you said you wear many hats, so you have the pilot program. What else are you doing here?

Kristina De Mrzio: 8:05

Yeah, so I do a lot of patient stories and so anytime you see a patient story, whether it's on our website or on our social media, they have spoken to me, which is great. I love it. It's a great part of my job and it just allows me to to talk with all of our patients and really get um, I don't know, get all of their stories. I love it.

Chris Glass: 8:23

Right. So if we're let's, let's put a a human face on some of these uh missions. Tell me some of your favorite stories.

Kristina De Mrzio: 8:30

Yeah, so uh, let's think a good mission, I guess. Recently I just mentioned Tim and by.

Chris Glass: 8:35

By the way, I love the word mission that. Mark said it, john said it. Everybody talks about missions, not not patients, but like the mission of getting them there Exactly, it's a very noble way of speaking.

Kristina De Mrzio: 8:47

Yeah, and that's what we've called it forever. But yeah, it's just, it is a great word, but yeah. So the route from Timmins to Ottawa is a very frequent route for Timmins patients because they have partnerships with the Ottawa Hospital.

Chris Glass: 9:01

Right.

Kristina De Mrzio: 9:01

But there's a little girl named Sienna that we actually will be sharing her story soon, but she, I think she was less than a year old and she started developing rashes all over her body. Her parents were like I don't understand what's going on. Brought her to the doctor, the doctor was like, oh, you know, it's just the flu, this is a symptom of the flu. And the parents are like, okay, well, that's great, but we don't think that that's it. So they went and got a second referral, a second opinion, and that doctor was like actually, I believe that this is something bigger than that. So she ended up getting medevaced to the Ottawa hospital where they did a bunch of testing and they found out she had a really rare I'm going to say cancer adjacent disease and I hope I get this right, because it's off the top of my head, but I think it's called Lagerhans histiocytosis, I believe. And don't get me if I didn't get that right, but I wouldn't be correcting you if you didn't.

Chris Glass: 9:58

Yes, the way that that disease works is that it looks exactly like cancer, but it's not cancer.

Kristina De Mrzio: 10:00

Don't get me if I didn't get that right. I wouldn't be correcting you if you didn't. The way that that disease works is that it looks exactly like cancer, but it's not cancer, and it's treated exactly like cancer. So this little girl, less than a year old, now has to travel from Timmins to Ottawa for chemo treatments for 12 weeks, and so you know, parents are now trying to figure out what's going on.

Kristina De Mrzio: 10:16

Your mom is on mat leave, is not working, dad had to take some time off, he's now on EI, and they couldn't afford to go back and forth. Luckily, the hospital told them about Hope Air, and so they were flying with Hope Air for a while doing the Timmins to Toronto, toronto to Ottawa route, because the social worker didn't know about the volunteer pilot program, and so, until I spoke with them, shared information about the volunteer pilot program and said this could be so much easier for you, why are you not flying with them? And so now they're able to fly Timmins to Ottawa directly with that volunteer pilot program, and so she can finish her chemo, and hopefully soon. She doesn't have to do it anymore.

Kristina De Mrzio: 10:52

Great and Sienna's battling well oh, yeah, yeah, she's doing great.

Chris Glass: 10:57

She's the happiest little baby, like just the cutest little munchkin now you were telling me about a story about a little boy named harland. Uh, can you tell me that story? Because I think it it hits the real need for that volunteer pilot program yeah, absolutely so.

Kristina De Mrzio: 11:12

Harland lives on manitoulin island, in gorbet, and so this was their first time ever flying on a hope bear mission, first trip with Hope Air ever, and our volunteer pilot went, flew right into Gorbet, met them, actually, when the pilot arrived, because I can't remember exactly what the disease that Harlan has, but he was on a feeding tube, so he had to, you know, do his feed at the airport.

Kristina De Mrzio: 11:35

Pilot, picked them up, showed them their way, took off on their way to Toronto city center and as they're flying over Manitoulin Island, uh, his, his mom goes, hey, harlan, like look, and he's kind of looking out the window. She goes that's our house, do you see our trampoline? And they were all freaking out in the back Like it was so cool Cause they had never flown over their house before. And what an experience for I think he was around six or seven a year old child to you know be able to not only be in a private plane to start with, but to see their house from you know, so many thousands of feet in the sky Right and you know when you're traveling.

Chris Glass: 12:09

Under those circumstances it's not a great time to travel. So a story like that is pretty heartwarming, because I'm sure Harwin kind of forgot he was a sick kid for a moment while he's being flown around by a private pilot.

Kristina De Mrzio: 12:21

Exactly, yeah, and a lot of our patients too. Oftentimes, either you're flying down from diagnosis or flying home from surgery, or you're going back and forth for treatment. It's not fun. You're in the midst of a medical journey.

Chris Glass: 12:34

Travel isn't fun at the best of times.

Kristina De Mrzio: 12:36

Exactly so, at least with a smiling face with our volunteer pilots and having the experience of being on a small aircraft you know four to six seats like how many times can you really get that experience in your lifetime? So it's really cool for our patient.

Chris Glass: 12:50

Now, how is this all coordinated right? So, if you have 40, 41, 42 pilots across the country, do you have a control center? Do you have like operations? What does that look like?

Kristina De Mrzio: 13:02

Yeah, so our client care team that I'm pretty sure somebody must have mentioned it before. But our client care team, what they do is they act like travel agents. So a patient will put in their application, whether it's online or over the phone, and our team will go and book all of their arrangements for them. And so if somebody is identified that they want to fly with our volunteer pilot program, then our client care team will, you know, try to figure out if there's a volunteer available. If so, then we'll put them on one of those. But either that or they'll look and say, okay, well, this is a really horrible route, like Timmins to Ottawa or Cranbrook to Kelowna, bc, and maybe they would benefit from a volunteer pilot flight. So they'll ask you know, hey, are you comfortable flying in a smaller aircraft? Is this, you know? Do you require oxygen? Because there's a couple of things that are requirements for our patients. But and then they'll book them that way. Wow.

Chris Glass: 13:53

It's such a, like I said, a hidden form of aviation that people just haven't really thought of, and you don't think of it until you, unfortunately, are in that situation. Right, like you know, medical needs don't care about the economic viability of a route.

Kristina De Mrzio: 14:12

Exactly yeah.

Chris Glass: 14:13

You know, Timmins to Ottawa probably doesn't have 737s or Dreamliners on it because the demand isn't there, but the medical need is.

Kristina De Mrzio: 14:22

Exactly, yeah, and there's so many times, too, where there's people that get medevaced down because they've had some kind of traumatic medical event, whether it's a heart attack or whatever, and then they get stranded at the hospital, wherever they get dropped off at it, whether it's Toronto or Vancouver, because Medivac doesn't bring you home. So that's also part of our program too, and even with our volunteer pilot program, is that we'll help bring people home, because you know, when you're having a heart attack, you're not thinking, hey, can you grab my ID? Well, as we're leaving, you know, and people are left without their wallets, without their ID, and either they have to sit and wait in Toronto for it to get mailed down, correct, yeah.

Kristina De Mrzio: 14:59

Or you know they take one of our volunteer pilot flights where you don't like. It's great if you have it, but you're not crossing any borders, so you don't really need it, right.

Chris Glass: 15:06

Yeah, when you think of the logistics behind those medevacs, like in Alberta, it's stars, right, I know it's. I believe it's called orange here, Yep, but I know in STARS, you know a helicopter picks you up, flies you to a hospital, and then what? Yep, they wave and Hope Air is there to fill in the. Then what? Exactly, and what a great mission. Yeah, yeah exactly so, going into 2025,. What are your needs? What are you looking to accomplish in your role?

Kristina De Mrzio: 15:36

Yeah, so the program is growing. We're actually looking to grow the program in Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as northern Ontario, so anywhere like Sault, ste Marie and more north as well as northern BC, because there's a lot of communities up in those areas that we just aren't able to support with our volunteer pilots, either because it's too far or there's just nobody there, right. So that's kind of where our recruitment is opening up. Recruitment will be open come, let's say, march or April, because we have to do our renewals first with our current volunteer pilots. But as soon as that's open, we would welcome all applications, so long as you meet our minimum requirements, which are on our website, right? But yeah, we're just looking to grow the program.

Chris Glass: 16:17

Is there a specific aircraft type or size Like do you prefer, or is it all shapes and sizes?

Kristina De Mrzio: 16:24

All shapes and sizes. The typical aircraft that we have in our programs is, you know, four to six seats. We've had Cessnas, pipers, diamonds I think Bonanza has been in our program Like there's a bit of anything and everything. We just need pilots in the aircraft. Excellent.

Chris Glass: 16:41

Yeah Well, christina, this has been just an absolutely fantastic day spending some time with Hope Air. I'm going to give you the last word before I sign off, so what would you like our listeners to know?

Kristina De Mrzio: 16:54

Yeah, it's just it's. Hope Air is such a great cause and we do such incredible work all across the country and whether you're able to donate funds or donate knowledge, or donate your aircraft or even just spread the word about Hope Air, we appreciate all of it and, yeah, it's a great cause.

Chris Glass: 17:10

Well, thank you so much for agreeing to open your doors to us today, and let us be a part of the Hope Air family today.

Kristina De Mrzio: 17:17

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having us.

Chris Glass: 17:26

And thank you for listening at the Open Skies podcast. Today has been very touching to me and I'm extremely proud to be associated with Hope Air and to bring you these two episodes. So thank you so much for spending some time with us and thank you to Hope Air for having us. Thanks, excellent.