UN air service faces cuts, jeopardizing aid access to remote areas

The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service — often the only way aid workers can reach the world’s most remote crisis zones — is the latest entity to face severe funding cuts, with consequences likely to ripple across humanitarian operations in multiple countries. Managed by the World Food Programme since its creation in 2004, UNHAS offers passenger and light cargo transport to the entire humanitarian community. Last year, more than 600 humanitarian organizations relied on its flights to move their staff and supplies across 21 countries, primarily in Africa. But the service is now grappling with a multimillion-dollar funding shortfall that WFP officials say will force it to scale down its operations. Globally, UNHAS — which had a 2025 budget of $307 million that is largely separate from WFP’s food assistance budget — is reducing its fleet by over 22%, meaning 17 fewer aircraft will be in service, a WFP spokesperson told Devex. Routes are being cut, aircraft grounded, and staffing levels may also have to be reduced. It’s an unwelcome blow for a system designed to overcome the barriers posed by poor roads, insecurity, and isolation that make commercial air service unviable or impossible. In 2024, UNHAS transported more than 355,000 passengers and nearly 5,000 metric tons of cargo to 394 destinations across its network. It also carried out over 1,400 security relocations and medical evacuations, which can make the difference between life and death for aid workers. A WFP spokesperson told Devex that the specific locations and scale of cuts are “dynamic” and will depend on needs assessments and the evolving funding situation. But even as those plans remain fluid, significant reductions are already being felt on the ground. In Afghanistan, for example, there has been a nearly two-thirds drop in the number of seats available to aid workers on UNHAS flights, and three helicopter destinations have been cut altogether, the spokesperson said. In the Central African Republic, the fleet has shrunk from three aircrafts in 2024 to just two. And in South Sudan — one of the largest and most complex UNHAS operations — service has been reduced from 48 destinations to 43, with flights to five locations halted entirely and service scaled down to 10 others. South Sudan: A critical test case Few places illustrate the stakes of these cuts more starkly than South Sudan. Although a peace deal was signed in 2018, renewed tensions between President Salva Kiir’s forces and an ethnic militia he links to long-time rival Vice President Riek Machar are threatening to drag the country back into full-scale war, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis. Over half the population — an estimated 7.7 million people — is experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, classified as IPC Phase 3 or higher, according to the International Food Security Phase Classification, the U.N.-backed global authority that measures hunger crises. That includes around 83,000 people in “Phase 5 Catastrophe,” the most severe category, in pockets of Pibor County, the counties of Luakpiny/Nasir, Ulang, and Malakal in Upper Nile State. Among them are 39,000 returnees who fled conflict in neighboring Sudan, only to face the same level of food crisis back home. Conflict is not only sending people fleeing from Sudan into South Sudan but is also intensifying within South Sudan’s own borders. The country is teetering on the edge of all-out civil war, with insecurity increasingly hampering aid access. In May alone, there were 39 reported access incidents, while 28 aid workers had to be relocated due to escalating violence, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. These evacuations and staff relocations are the kinds of missions UNHAS is designed to support. In a country with little or no viable commercial air service, its helicopters and small planes are often the only way to get in or out of remote regions. “There is absolutely no reliable commercial alternative for the flights,” Oleh Maslyukov, who heads up UNHAS in South Sudan, told Devex. “Nobody's going there for any other reason. There is simply no money, no commercial interest.” Not only are there no commercial alternatives — there is not even the infrastructure to support them, if there were. Around 60% of the destinations that UNHAS serves in the country are only reachable by helicopter. “The two cover 60% of the destinations that we have. Because these locations are absolutely unreachable during the rainy season,” Maslyukov said. “In the Upper Nile and Jonglei states — there are places where there are no airstrips as such. So it's isolated communities and the only way of getting there during the rainy season is to use a UNHAS helicopter.” The current round of cuts means five destinations in South Sudan — which include one destination in Upper Nile (Paloich) and one in Jonglei (Maruwa) — will no longer be served at all. Even where service continues, reduced flight frequency or capacity can mean crucial delays in delivering aid, rotating staff, or evacuating patients. In addition to the cuts to services, the funding constraints are likely to lead to reductions in staff, too. Right now, UNHAS in South Sudan employs around 95 people, most of them national staff. “We anticipate that there will be some reduction of UNHAS personnel, simply because of the funding,” Maslyukov said. Funding constraints UNHAS is designed to stay affordable and accessible to humanitarian organizations by relying on donor support. But donor funding is down almost across the board. Donations from WFP’s biggest donor, the United States, have fallen sharply as the Trump administration has gutted foreign aid. But the squeeze isn’t limited to Washington — aid budgets are under pressure across the board, with traditional donors such as the European Union also slashing budgets. Although UNHAS is managed by WFP, its funding is separate from direct food assistance budgets. Donors typically earmark specific contributions for UNHAS operations. Some of this comes through country-specific donations, some through regional funding pools, and some as flexible support for UNHAS globally. Countries such as Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden provide this flexible funding, which allows UNHAS to prioritize flights where needs are greatest. This flexibility has proven especially critical in major emergencies — during the COVID-19 pandemic or Ebola outbreaks, for example — when UNHAS has served as an essential global logistics backbone to move people and goods into hard-to-reach areas. But UNHAS isn’t entirely donor-dependent: It also charges passengers a modest fee per seat. This not only discourages costly no-shows on limited-capacity flights but also helps sustain operations. “We have a nominal fee that we charge, which doesn't fully cover the cost. But it puts some I would say discipline,” Maslyukov said. The contribution is meaningful. “It also helps us to generate about 30% of the funding that we need,” he added. “It's appreciated by donors that we can generate about, I would say, close to 30% ourselves with this nominal charge that we implement. And the rest is contributed by donors.” Despite this balanced funding model, the current shortfalls are unusually severe. One WFP official noted that UNHAS has rarely faced such funding crises in the past, given its clear value to humanitarian operations. Now, there is “deep anxiety” within the agency about what these cuts will mean for access, the official said. WFP has warned repeatedly in recent months that donors are stretched thin, forcing it to scale back food aid, cash assistance, and now even the humanitarian air service. For UNHAS, the result is fewer planes, fewer routes, and reduced capacity — at precisely the moment when humanitarian needs are as urgent as ever.