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So, the other day I was chilling in Old Fangak
in South Sudan and I thought, “man, this

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Fangak sure is old.

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I think I’m gonna take a vacation to New
Fangak.”

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One lengthy review process and 275 USD later,
I was kicking back on the 15 minute flight

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across the river from Old Fangak to New Fangak.

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Now, you might be wondering, what kind of
airline is flying a route from this remote

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farming town in the middle of South Sudan
to this other remote farming town in the middle

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of South Sudan?

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Well, dear viewer, let me introduce you to
the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service,

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the only airline dedicated to going to all
of the places that no other airline wants

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to go.

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This airline is actually managed by the World
Food Programme, which is the UN’s program

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for… world food, basically.

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“Now Sam,” you might be saying, “I’m
an aviation expert and I know that planes

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aren’t food, so what business does this
food assistance program have managing a passenger

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airline for the largest international organization
in the world?”

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Well, the answer is a little complicated,
but it starts with this place: the Sahel.

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All you really need to know about the Sahel
is that this region is basically party central,

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if by “party” you mean “famine.”

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Back in the 1970s—in the midst of one of
these famines—the World Food Programme was

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struggling to deliver aid; infrastructure
on the ground wasn’t developed enough, and

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all of their Grubhub drivers were getting
lost.

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So, the WFP organized 30 cargo aircraft from
12 different air forces to fly over the region

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and drop specially marked bags of food near
population centers over the course of three

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years.

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The WFP continued to carry out larger and
larger aerial operations over the next couple

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of decades—like Lifeline Sudan, where they
had to figure out how to airdrop 1.5 million

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tons of food into Sudan while somehow convincing
both sides of a civil war to not kill them—and

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they had gotten so good at coordinating aerial
logistics that, in 2003, the UN decided to

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consolidate all of their aviation services
under one brand-new airline, and put the WFP

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in charge of it.

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Now, obviously it makes sense that the UN
has plenty of cargo and people to move around,

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but the real question is: why do they need
their own airline to do it?

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Y’know, Hooters has cargo and people to
move around too, but you don’t see Hooters

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Air serving your local airport.

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And this is because, basically, the UN only
has two other options.

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The first would be to use military aircraft
to move their stuff around, like they did

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before UNHAS existed.

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And, admittedly, the UN does use government-supplied
planes, but only for their peacekeeping operations—like

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intervening in a civil war or just kind of
hanging out while a genocide happens.

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They tend to draw the line, however, when
it comes to their humanitarian operations,

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like providing a region with food or medical
supplies.

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The UN has to keep these two branches pretty
much completely separate, because they need

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their humanitarian aid workers to be a politically
neutral entity, lest they be shot at or canceled

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on Twitter.

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The other option, then, would be to move their
humanitarian workers with commercial airlines.

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But as you might imagine, that doesn’t work
for… a lot of reasons.

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The main one is that these workers often need
to be deployed to dangerous or unstable regions,

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and the overlap between “deadly warzones”
and “places that commercial airlines will

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fly” is virtually 0, with the exception
of Newark International Airport.

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Just as a fairly recent example, let’s talk
about what happened in Afghanistan last year.

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After the US military pulled out of the country
and the Taliban took power, every commercial

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airline got together and said, “hey, we
really don’t want the Taliban doing air

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traffic control for us,” and the Taliban
said “we also don’t want the Taliban doing

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air traffic control for you, so just go ahead
and stop sending flights here.”

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With no international government presence
and no commercial flight routes, Afghanistan

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would’ve been entirely cut off from aid
if not for the UNHAS.

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Within a week of the takeover, the UN’s
airline had relocated its planes to Islamabad

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for repairs, and less than a week after that,
they were already resuming flights back into

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Afghanistan.

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By February, the map of their routes within
the country looked like this—a better public

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transit network than most American cities
have.

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Now, obviously, UNHAS doesn’t operate like
any normal airline; for one, you have to have

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a legitimate reason to take the flight that
you’re taking—a rule that I know for certain

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doesn’t exist on other airlines, cough,
cough, please go watch our new channel.

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The UNHAS will typically only book you if
you’re on some kind of humanitarian mission

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for the UN or some other charitable NGO; and
in case you were wondering, it turns out that

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being a YouTuber who likes to talk about planes
is not a humanitarian mission.

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The main reason for this restriction is that
although they charge money like any other

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airline, the UNHAS has pretty limited resources;
across the 23 countries they operate in, they

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only have 75 aircraft, most of which they
don’t even own—they just charter them

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from other airlines.

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Their actual fleet consists of just 28 aircraft,
and only two are real big-boy airplanes: one

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Boeing 767 and one Airbus A320.

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Most of their planes are much smaller, with
the bulk of their fleet being made up of Embraer

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ERJ-145s and De Havilland Canada DHC-8s, plus
a couple of helicopters which, honestly, shouldn’t

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even count.

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Now, this tiny little airline is one of the
best practical problem-solving organizations

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00:04:24,650 --> 00:04:29,980
in the world, and if you want to glean a little
bit of their skills, you might enjoy the “Joy

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of Problem Solving” on Brilliant.

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This course dives deep on the fundamentals
of solving problems, teaching you how to recognize

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patterns and develop proofs with fun, interactive,
and straightforward activities.

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You’re not just gonna be sitting at your
computer for hours reading paragraph after

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paragraph—Brilliant lets you learn by doing;
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and wherever you want.

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And hey, if problem-solving isn’t a problem
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their 60+ courses on everything under the
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People who enjoy my channels really seem to
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too; it’s a great way to kill some spare
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