Driving to work every day can often lead to traffic delays during your morning commute. To avoid this congestion, a company set their sights to the sky by hiring a helicopter for employees to get to work.
Rightline Equipment in Rainier, Oregon, has more than 300 workers who make forklift attachments for companies like Nissan and Caterpillar. Around half of their employees commute to work from Longview, Washington, which is the site of a current bridge closure.
A simple 15-to-20 minute drive has turned into adding 100 more miles commute, which led the equipment company to get creative in order to help out their employees.
“The first thought was deciding if we stay open,” Sean Atkins, the HR manager at Rightline Equipment, said. “If you do stay open, what’s the best way of transportation? Do you go by boat? Do you bus people around? Do you shut down for the week?
“Depending on what time they come to work and leave to work, it’s anywhere from three to four hours to get here,” Atkins said.
Rightline Equipment decided to rent helicopters for the week, taking workers from a nearby airport directly to the Rightline property. This way, the employees can get to work in an efficient manner and the company’s production schedule remains on track.
“We have to do it all ourselves so if we’re not here doing it, it’s just not happening,” Atkins said.