The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday proposed giving airlines flexibility in requirements for emergency medical kits on commercial flights.
The FAA is proposing moving from a prescriptive checklist of medical items and instead setting performance-based standards requiring carriers to have sufficient resources to manage nine life-threatening conditions.
The agency requires emergency medical kits to provide basic evaluation and initial treatment for passengers experiencing medical issues until the passenger can be transferred to emergency medical personnel.
Under the proposal, airlines would be able to determine the items and amounts in a kit. The nine conditions: cardiac emergencies, breathing difficulties, gastrointestinal emergencies, opioid overdoses, childbirth, seizures, severe allergic reactions, major bleeding and hypoglycemia.
A 2025 Duke Health study review of 77,000 in-flight medical events showed most incidents were minor but thousands required hospital care after landing, and hundreds died or triggered aircraft diversions.
Researchers reviewed medical calls from 84 airlines across six continents, covering over 3.1 billion passenger boardings between January 2022 and December 2023 and found that one in every 212 flights involved a medical emergency and about 8% of passengers were taken to the hospital after landing, and that 1.7% were serious enough to cause diversions.
Emergency kits contain supplies to treat abrasions, lacerations, sprains or strains, and fractures and other more serious issues.
The current kit requires 64 different items, twice the requirements before 2001.
Required equipment includes a first aid kit, a sphygmomanometer or blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, medical gloves, four syringes, six needles; one 50% dextrose injection; two epinephrine doses and 10 nitroglycerin tablets.
Planes would still need to have an external defibrillator under the revised rules.
Medication shortages occasionally affect airlines' abilities to acquire an adequate supply for emergency kits. Incomplete kits prevent an airline from operating a flight, but airlines can petition for an FAA exemption.
The FAA agreed in 2013 to an exemption because of a dextrose shortage. The medicine is used to treat severe, life-threatening hypoglycemia. Under the new rules if finalized airlines could have found a replacement for Dextrose without seeking an exemption.
