EagleMed merging with sister company, Med-Trans

The parent company of Wichita-based air ambulance provider EagleMed LLC is merging it under sister company Med-Trans Corp.’s Federal Aviation Administration certificate.

“This merger will make the combined operations stronger and more efficient while enhancing the patient experience for the communities we serve,” EagleMed spokesman Jim Gregory said in an e-mail to The Eagle on Friday.

Gregory said that as part of the merger, EagleMed’s operational control center will be combined with Med-Trans sometime in July. He said EagleMed had recently begun building an operation control center team “but had not achieved full staffing.”

“As a result, two employees have been offered severance packages,” Gregory said.

He said there have been no other operational decisions made with the merger, and “there have been no other notifications with regard to employees.”

“The merger activity is expected to take a number of months to complete,” Gregory said in the e-mail.

He also said it hasn’t been decided whether EagleMed’s name will change with the merger.

EagleMed employs 90 in Wichita from its base at 6601 W. Pueblo, on the east side of Eisenhower Airport.

It operates 15 helicopters, 20 Beechcraft King Air airplanes and six ground ambulances in 12 states. It was founded as an air ambulance service in 1981 by Jim and Iva Ballard, who sold the company in 2009 to Air Medical Group Holdings, based in Lewisville, Texas.

Air Medical Group is also the owner of Dallas-based Med-Trans, which operates more than 60 helicopter and airplane bases in 21 states.

In March, affiliates of investment firms Bain Capital and Brockway Moran & Partners signed a definitive agreement to sell Air Medical Group to investment funds managed by New York-based KKR. That deal is expected to close in the second quarter, which ends Tuesday.

This story was originally published June 26, 2015 at 8:01 PM with the headline "EagleMed merging with sister company, Med-Trans."