Medical Escort Program
BECOMING AN ESCORT
The Airline Ambassadors Escort Program is mainly limited to accepting applications from American Airlines employees and retirees. We are somewhat limited with other airlines, because of rules and regulations regarding their mileage banks. If this situation should change, we will announce the re-opening of the program. Thank you to all who have participated in the program throughout the years!
Escorting is not for everyone. You must be flexible, quick thinking, and resourceful. It is not easy to take medically fragile children from their mother’s arms and fly them away to a distant, unknown land. You will have the frightened child in one arm, carry-on bags in the other, and emotionally distraught relatives behind, as you make your way through security and onto the airplane.
Thee child will usually soon calm down and begin to bond with you. You then realize what an important role you are playing in helping to restore a child to good health. We have found that most escorts who bring these sick children to the U.S. ask to return them to their families once their treatment is complete. Although most of our escort trips are to accompany medically fragile children, we do sometimes escort orphaned children to their new families as well.
Before applying to become an escort, please review the guidelines for escorts, and read some of the inspiring escort stories. If you are still interested in becoming an escort, please download and complete the escort application form. This can be found on the forms page.
Margaret Whitehead
Director, Children’s Escort Program
700 Avalon Way
Peachtree City, GA 30269
margaret.whitehead@airlineamb.org
