When you are too ill to take a regular airline seat you will need to be brought home by air ambulance. Make sure that your vacation insurance covers this, because it will make a big hole in your bank account otherwise. Read the small print to see under exactly what circumstances an air ambulance will be provided by the insurance company.

If one of your party dies while abroad an air ambulance company can be hired to bring the body home for burial, even if it is not provided by your insurance company.

Long-range air ambulances are usually small business jet type aircraft. These business jets provide the fastest and most comfortable transport, where speed can be of the utmost importance.

Smaller fixed wing aircraft are used where the distance involved is smaller. They are faster than a helicopter and can sometimes be landed on a road near to an accident. Where poor weather would ground a helicopter, a twin or single engined, fixed wing air ambulance can still operate.

Rural parts of the United States, Europe and Australia depend on air ambulances to transport patients to hospitals in the shortest possible time.

In urban locations helicopter air ambulances are often most useful. They can dodge traffic and land on rooftops, sports grounds or roads, carrying EMT personnel to the scene of a traffic accident and rapidly taking injured patients to nearby hospitals.

Helicopters may be the only way that emergency personnel can reach a climbing or shooting accident in mountainous regions. They are small though, and only carry the minimum of supplies to enable the crew to stabilize a patient long enough to reach a nearby hospital.