PlaneSense
Dec. 3, 2015
This holiday season, New Hampshire-based fractional aircraft program manager PlaneSense, Inc. plans to fill a Pilatus PC-12 with donated food items for the New Hampshire Food Bank. So far more than 7,000 pounds of food has been collected, which will provide more than 5,800 meals.
“The New Hampshire Food Bank works with more than 400 partner agencies throughout the State of New Hampshire, reaching so many families in need,” said George Antoniadis, president and CEO of PlaneSense.
“We are pleased to be able to help for a second year in a row, and I am very proud that our employees and their families contribute substantially to this food drive,” he added. “We are also delighted that our friends at Pilatus Business Aircraft, the Pease Development Authority, BoldIQ and businesses on Pease Tradeport, including Teledyne, have given donations to help as well.”
Antoniadis will fly a PC-12 full of donated foods to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT) in Manchester, NH on Dec. 9, marking the companies’ second year collecting in support of the food bank. Last year’s donations totaled around 800 pounds of food.
Last year, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan and Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas recognized the PlaneSense team’s efforts by greeting the airplane and helping New Hampshire Food Bank volunteers and PlaneSense executives unload the aircraft. Gatsas also plans to attend this year, and other local officials have been invited.
The company says that while filling an airplane with food is the initial goal, increasing the public’s exposure to the needs of the New Hampshire Food Bank is an equally important result of the holiday food drive.
Humanitarian efforts to help those in need, such as this food collection by PlaneSense, are one of the tenents of the No Plane No Gain advocacy campaign. A 2015 No Plane No Gain survey, conducted by Harris Poll, reveals that during the past year, 23 percent of pilots say they have flown humanitarian missions. The pilots reported flying an average of 3.5 humanitarian missions per year.