Lucy AAC to rebrand as Lia’s Wings

Lucy Air Ambulance for Children (Lucy AAC) has announced that it will rebrand to Lia’s Wings, a process which will be rolled out ‘over the next few weeks and months’.

The announcement was made at an event on 29 March, hosted at the hangar of private jet charter firm Centreline, at Bristol Airport. Centreline's parent company, Pula Aviation, is also the owner of Capital Air Ambulance - a company which is a critical partner of Lucy AAC. As the charity does not operate its own aircraft, Lucy regularly employs Capital's fixed-wing aircraft to carry out missions.

Capital also recently announced the full capability of its new pediatric service.

The change of name is in honour of Emilia ‘Lia’ Schoennagel, a young girl who died unexpectedly aged five in September 2022. The ‘Lucy’ of the charity’s former name is not a person – rather it stands for ‘Life-changing, Urgent Care for the Young’.

The change also recognises the support that Lia’s parents, Patrick and Melissa, have given the charity in the months since, enabling it to raise significant funds.

The charity, which operates fixed-wing air ambulance services for children, stated that: “Driven by the loving determination of her family that something good would come out of this awful tragedy … Patrick and Melissa, as well as Lucy AAC’s Board of Trustees and staff team, want Lia’s prematurely-ended life to be the catalyst for change at our small charity.”

The rebrand coincides with the charity’s expansion

The rebrand will coincide with an ongoing expansion of the charity’s work. In the coming years, Lucy AAC / Lia’s Wings will work to:

• Develop its funding channels to support more air transfers
• Expand its family care package, to ensure that the families of patients are provided with support while their child is in hospital
• Provide training to more medical staff to further expand the service
• Further develop its partnership with the UK National Health Service (NHS) to be an advocate for families whose children are in hospital.

The charity added in a statement that: “After 12 years of changing children’s lives, our charity has built a strong reputation for hospital air transfers for children here in the UK and, increasingly, abroad. We also support families in the weeks, months and years that follow the need for such a transfer. However, Lucy AAC has outgrown almost everything it was created to achieve. We can now be and do so much more.”

Fellow UK-based air ambulance charity Wales Air Ambulance unveiled its own refreshed branding in May 2022.