Flying with purpose

Now a flight instructor herself, Buntin wants students to apply what they’ve learned while helping communities in need. Through Aloha Aviators, the nonprofit she founded in 2020, student pilots can turn cross-country flights into missions delivering supplies, supporting animal rescues, and helping families across Hawaiʻi and beyond.

During ordinary flight training, Buntin said, students often fly with the same instructor and fuel load, making weight-and-balance calculations routine. Carrying supplies means accounting for different loads, aircraft performance, and weather. She wants students to consult the pilot’s operating handbook, calculate takeoff and landing distances, and explain their decisions rather than simply repeat information they’ve memorized. "It’s real world flying that I want to teach," she said.

Buntin also wants students to learn from pilots with experience beyond the flight training level. She remembered her retired Topgun instructor sharing lessons she couldn't have learned from a textbook. He has since died, but she continues to pass along what he taught her to her own students.

Aloha Aviators was founded during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals nationwide faced shortages of personal protective equipment. At the same time, cargo barges stopped serving Hawaiʻi's outer islands, making it difficult for residents to get supplies.

Buntin, a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant working toward her flight instructor certificate, began sewing masks with fellow flight attendants. She said she received permission from Hawaiʻi's governor to conduct relief flights during pandemic restrictions. Their efforts began with masks and cat food, then expanded to hygiene products and other necessities.

As AOPA reported in June 2020, Buntin and fellow pilots helped produce and deliver more than 1,000 masks to medical facilities. She covered aircraft rental and fuel costs despite having lost her job during the pandemic.

Buntin, who received an AOPA advanced flight training scholarship in 2019, believes those who benefit from the support of others have a responsibility to pass it along.

Having spent years teaching and mentoring students, including at San José State University in California, she knows that many young aviators want to contribute but have little money to spare. Through Aloha Aviators, she saw an opportunity for student pilots to use their flying skills to help others while continuing their own training.

Student pilot volunteers help plan routes, calculate fuel requirements and weight and balance, evaluate weather, and coordinate deliveries with recipients. They also contact FBOs to arrange services and ask about discounted fuel or waived landing fees. Buntin recalled encouraging volunteers to negotiate a $200 landing fee at Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport. When they hesitated, she told them to ask anyway. "Just try," she said. "The worst-case scenario is they would say no."

The organization has benefited from discounted fuel, waived landing fees, and extended use of crew cars to complete deliveries. Buntin considers these conversations a part of flight training, helping students learn how to work with FBOs and other people and organizations they may encounter throughout their aviation careers.

During animal rescue missions, volunteers coordinate with shelters while accounting for weather and other operational constraints. Morning fog might delay a flight, while strong winds could force them to postpone a mission. Buntin said she tries to help less experienced volunteers recognize those risks before they become too focused on completing a flight. She wants them to understand that sometimes the right decision is to stay on the ground.

During a fundraising effort in 2020, teenager Isabella Smith approached Buntin and admitted she didn’t know anyone in aviation or where to begin. Buntin helped her identify the first steps toward becoming a pilot and paired her with another young aviator close to her age.

Their first project together involved doughnuts. At the time, Krispy Kreme had a location only on Maui. The two young volunteers organized a fundraiser, taking preorders before flying a Cessna 172 from Honolulu to Maui to collect the doughnuts.

Smith continued volunteering with Aloha Aviators, helping organize barbecues, trivia nights, and other fundraisers. Buntin also helped her explore aviation programs as she prepared for college.

Smith went on to graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and, according to Buntin, recently became a captain at Kamaka Air. "It’s just fascinating to see how that little spark continued," Buntin said.

As a flight instructor, Buntin has seen students struggle with the cost of training, long hours, and pressure to earn their next certificate or rating. Some become so focused on finishing that they forget why they wanted to fly. "It’s supposed to be fun," she said. "So if it’s not fun, let’s dial it down."

Buntin encourages volunteers to take on what they can manage without becoming overwhelmed. She said volunteers often finish a mission asking when they can fly another.

This December, Aloha Aviators plans to reach about 3,000 children across Hawaiʻi through its Mele KEIKImaka mission, December 8 through 24. Buntin said the effort will focus on children whose parents are incarcerated.

The work relies on donated time, resources, and support from the community, sometimes from people Buntin has never met. She recalled receiving a letter from a high school senior who had read about Aloha Aviators and wanted to contribute. He wrote that his savings for the year came to $136.85 and he wanted the money to go to children.

He wanted the children to know they were loved. Buntin said it wasn’t the amount that mattered, but that someone so young had chosen to give everything he saved to children he would likely never meet. She hopes those gestures stay with the students, just as the lessons from her own mentors have stayed with her. “It just takes one person to change another person’s life,” Buntin said.