On 10 June 2026, Gulf Med Aviation Services, a Medilink International Group company, completed its one-thousandth emergency medical mission in Portugal. Less than a year after operations began. 1,515 flight hours logged. 644 patients transported. An operational availability rate above 98%. 

It was 9:56 when the helicopter based in Évora received the activation. A secundary mission. On board, pilots Rodrigo Sá and Alex Ullberg and the INEM medical team. In under three minutes, the aircraft was airborne. Mission number one thousand. 

Image: Rodrigo Sá and Alex Ullberg – Pilots on the mission

Each of those 1,000 missions has a name, a family, a story. What they share is having happened at a moment when time mattered and when there was a helicopter ready to go. 

A group with medical DNA 

Gulf Med Aviation Services did not arrive in Portugal as an aviation company that happened to find itself in the emergency medical space. It arrived as a company built from within a group that has been delivering healthcare in complex, high-stakes environments for more than three decades. 

Image: Mission in transit

That origin is not a detail. It shapes the way missions are planned, the way pilots are trained, the way every operational decision is made. When the medical team on board needs something, Gulf Med Aviation Services understands why. Because Medilink International was built around exactly that understanding. 

“In the Medilink International Group, emergency medicine is something we have been developing for over three decades. We know the impact it has on people’s lives. The 1,000 missions completed in Portugal by Gulf Med Aviation Services fill us with pride and renew our commitment to continuing to make a difference”, says Maria Melillo, CEO of Medilink International Group. 

The figures 

Gulf Med Aviation Services began operations in Portugal on 1 July 2025, following an international public tender. In under twelve months, the operation has delivered the following results: 

• 1,000 missions completed (626 primary / 361 secondary) 
• 1,515 flight hours 
• 644 patients carried  
• Operational availability rate above 98% 

Image: H145 landing during the mission

What lies behind every mission 

There is what you see: a helicopter lifting off, landing beside the patient, transporting them to hospital. And there is what you do not see: the engineers who checked every system hours earlier. The pilots who reviewed the weather briefing. The operations team that ensured everything was ready. 

Image: Portugese medical team during the mission