Rainbow Helicopters Receives Humanitarian Award

The island-based company came to the aid of Maui fire victims.

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 09:27 PM ET

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Rainbow Helicopters earned HAI’s Humanitarian Service Salute to Excellence Award for work during Maui wildfires. [Courtesy: HAI]

Key Takeaways:

Rainbow Helicopters received the 2024 Helicopter Association International’s Humanitarian Service Salute to Excellence Award for its relief efforts during the 2023 Lahaina, Maui fires.
The company repurposed its aerial tour helicopters to conduct 13 missions, transporting over 5,500 pounds of critical supplies such as diapers, baby formula, food, and medical provisions to the affected areas.
Led by owner Nicole Battjes and volunteer employees, their initiative also raised over $76,000 through a GoFundMe campaign, facilitating continued aid and partnerships with local nonprofits into the holiday season.

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Rainbow Helicopters has been providing aerial tours of Hawaii for more than 10 years, and usually it’s people it transports. That changed after the devastation of the 2023 fires in Lahaina, Maui, where for several weeks the Rainbow Airbus AS350s and Robinson R44s were used to bring in diapers, baby formula, bottled water, food, and medical supplies. For this, the company has been recognized as the 2024 recipient of Helicopter Association International’s Humanitarian Service Salute to Excellence Award.

The award, sponsored by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, honors the person or persons who best demonstrate the value of rotorcraft to the communities in which they operate by providing aid to those in need.