The first Flying Eye Hospital was a Douglas DC-8-21 (N220RB) donated by United Airlines. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a number of private donors. Orbis was founded in 1982 with a grant from the U.S. History Orbis McDonnell Douglas DC-8-21 at Birmingham Airport, England Orbis is a founding partner, along with the World Health Organization, of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, 'a worldwide concerted effort designed to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.' In addition to the Flying Eye Hospital, Orbis operates hospital-based programs in several countries and works with local medical research and health-care organizations on blindness prevention and eye disease treatment.

Orbis' intervention are tailored to local needs Orbis trains local doctors in low-tech, low-cost yet effective methods to correct diseases of the eyes. Cybersight, Orbis' telemedicine program, continues the training and mentoring relationships. It’s Flying Eye Hospital not only gives care to patients, but also provides training to local staff and delivers equipment and surgical supplies to ensure that local teams are able to continue to help people long after the plane has left the program site. The organisation spends approximately a year planning and coordinating with partner hospitals and local organisations, making preliminary visits to observe the local medical teams. Orbis' programs emphasise skills, training and self-sufficiency. It is headquartered in New York, with offices in Toronto, London, Dublin, Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Singapore, Cape Town and Addis Ababa.

It was rated 4 stars on Charity Navigator in 2016 and was a Guidestar Gold Participant. Orbis is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit charity in the United States. Since 1982, Orbis capacity-building programs have enhanced the skills of 325,000 eye care personnel and provided medical and optical treatment to more than 23.3 million people in 92 countries. Its programs focus on the prevention of blindness and the treatment of blinding eye diseases in developing countries through hands-on training, public health education, advocacy and local partnerships. Orbis International is an international non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to saving sight worldwide.

Orbis plane inside