NEWS

At Atlantic Aviation, we pride ourselves on our employees. They go above and beyond every day to deliver a world-class customer experience. Christi Peterson, a Customer Service Manager at Atlantic'’s South Bend location, is certainly no exception. Her kind nature and dedication to customer service exceed even the highest expectations, and are exemplified in her recent work to make a dream come true.  

In 2013, John Loughmiller, a commercial pilot along with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, plane owners Mike and JoAnn Johnson, and Christi teamed up to make Shane DiGiovanna’'s wish come true to fly a real airplane.

Shane was born with Epidermolysis bullosa, an extremely painful skin disease that causes blisters from even the slightest touch. His parents spend 4 to 5 hours a day cleaning and bandaging nearly his entire body, and despite their efforts to keep him comfortable, Shane is in constant pain.

When the time arrived to arrange Shane’s dream flight, John contacted Christi because he knew right away that she would help ensure that Shane’'s dream would come to life in the biggest way possible.

The flight was arranged for Shane to help fly the plane from Columbus, Ohio, to South Bend, Indiana, but Christi knew that she could make his trip even more spectacular.

Christi first reached out to Michael Omat, the airport’'s chief of public safety to bring out a Crash/Rescue/Fire (CRF) truck to provide a distinguished honor generally reserved for airline captains –sending a massive arch of water over the plane during its taxi to the terminal.  

Through her contact with Notre Dame University (Shane’'s father’'s alma mater), she arranged for Al Troyer, the University'’s type rated captain to conduct a private tour of their corporate jet and the Aeronautical Engineering Department'’s famed wind tunnel, and as an added bonus –an autographed football from Notre Dame’'s Coach Kelly.

Read Shane and Christi’'s original story here.