Dassault Aviation made two Falcon jets available as part of the French military mission to contain the coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic, Operation Resilience. They carried out their first mission, transporting medical personnel, on April 5, 2020.
The business jets transported back to Paris 26 doctors and medical personnel who had accompanied patients with coronavirus transferred by train to Brest, western France, in an effort to alleviate the pressure on hospitals of the capital city.
The Falcon 900 and the 8X are configured to respectively accommodate 13 and 15 passengers. Too small to transport patients in intensive care, they will only be used to transport medical freight and medical personnel.
The two aircraft are operated by Dassault Falcon Service, a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation based at Le Bourget Airport (LBG), which specializes in aircraft maintenance and operations.
Dassault put forward the capacity of its aircraft to land at small airports, in all weather and without requiring ground infrastructure, which allows for quick transportation of medical teams or equipment.
It is not the sole plane maker to dedicate resources to the ongoing effort. Airbus set up an air bridge between Europe and China to bring protective facemasks and other medical equipment to be spread among France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain. To carry out this mission, the manufacturer allocated an A330-800, an A330 MRTT, an A400M and the Beluga fleet.
