Common questions about The Air Ambulance Service's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is The Air Ambulance Service a good charity? +
The Air Ambulance Service scores 74 out of 100 (3 stars — Needs improvement) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 38% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are up to date. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.
Is The Air Ambulance Service a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists The Air Ambulance Service as a registered charity (charity number 1098874). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=1098874&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.
What is The Air Ambulance Service's charity number? +
The Air Ambulance Service's charity number is 1098874. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.
What is The Air Ambulance Service's charity rating? +
The Air Ambulance Service scores 74 out of 100 on CharityCompare (3 stars — Needs improvement). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.
Does The Air Ambulance Service have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for The Air Ambulance Service. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (one red flag on this profile: high fundraising costs). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.
How much of my donation reaches The Air Ambulance Service? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 38% of The Air Ambulance Service's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.
What are The Air Ambulance Service's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 62% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 62% of expenditure (2023–2025, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at The Air Ambulance Service. The Air Ambulance Service's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 26 employees paid more than £60,000, including 3 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £140,001–£150,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does The Air Ambulance Service receive? +
The Air Ambulance Service reported £38m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: growing.
Are The Air Ambulance Service's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: up to date (last filing 2026-07-17). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is The Air Ambulance Service based? +
The Air Ambulance Service's registered contact address is in Coventry (CV21 3RQ). It tells the regulator it operates in England, with a focus on armed forces.
How much is The Air Ambulance Service's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. The Air Ambulance Service's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 26 employees paid more than £60,000, including 3 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £140,001–£150,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.
Where does The Air Ambulance Service's money come from? +
The Air Ambulance Service reported £38m total income for the year ending 31 December 2025. The largest sources were trading and fundraising events £22m (57%), donations and legacies £15m (40%), investments £1m (3%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £8.5m.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to The Air Ambulance Service? +
The register records The Air Ambulance Service as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.
Are The Air Ambulance Service's trustees paid? +
The Air Ambulance Service's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
What was The Air Ambulance Service previously called? +
The register lists these previous names for The Air Ambulance Service: Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance; The Central England Air Amublulance.
When was The Air Ambulance Service registered as a charity? +
The Air Ambulance Service was entered on the register on 5 August 2003. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 04845905).
How does CharityCompare score The Air Ambulance Service? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in The Air Ambulance Service's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.
How often is this page updated? +
This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and The Air Ambulance Service's most recent accounts cover 2025. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.