U.S., Soviet Airline Flights to Resume After $-Yr. Lull : ‘Immediate’ Step in Wafke of Summit

The United States and the Soviet Union, in the latest sign of a thaw in superpower relations, agreed today to resume commercial air service between the two countries.

In making the announcement, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole said that the accord was initialed in Moscow and that it clears the way for resumption of regular scheduled flights.

“Negotiators from the United States and the Soviet Union reached agreement today to resume direct air service between our two countries,” Dole said.

She said the agreement is “an immediate step” following up on hopes expressed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the summit talks that the U.S. and Soviet people be brought closer together.

Reagan suspended all U.S.-bound flights by the Soviet national airline Aeroflot on Dec. 29, 1981, as part of retaliation for the Kremlin-backed imposition of martial law in Poland.

Soviet Restrictions Blamed

Pan American World Airways, the only U.S. carrier that had served the Soviet Union, quit its Moscow route in October, 1978, for economic reasons. Airline officials at the time partly blamed the lack of profits on Soviet restrictions that favored Aeroflot.

Under the pact, both countries will be permitted up to four round-trip flights a week.

Dole said that Pan American World Airways will be authorized to serve Moscow and Leningrad and that Aeroflot is to be granted authority between the Soviet Union and New York and Washington.

A Pan Am spokesman said in New York that the airline plans to begin four flights a week to the Soviet Union on April 27.

The spokesman said the flights will originate from various points in the United States, including New York, Washington, Chicago and the West Coast, to Frankfurt, West Germany, and on to Leningrad and Moscow.

“We pulled out in 1978 because of a general economic situation; Moscow was not singled out,” he said. “We are confident that under the agreement we can operate on a sound economic basis.”

Ratification a Formality

The agreement must be ratified through diplomatic channels, which is expected to be a formality.

It was the second aviation agreement announced by Washington since the conclusion of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva.

On Thursday, the Administration disclosed an accord to help prevent a repeat of the Korean Air Lines disaster of 1983.

It provides for an around-the clock telephone hot line between air traffic control centers in Anchorage, Alaska, Tokyo and the Soviet town of Khabarovsk in Siberia. Officials said it will take from six to eight months before the system is operational.

Reagan, without mentioning the KAL crisis, said the Pacific Air Safety Agreement is “designed to set up cooperative measures to improve civil air safety in that region.”

But he left no doubt that the pact is clearly in response to the tragedy in which Soviet warplanes shot down the jetliner Sept. 1, 1983, killing all 269 people aboard, when it strayed into Soviet airspace while en route to Tokyo.