U.S., Soviets Will Resume Air Service

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

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

President 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.

Pan American World Airways, the only U.S. carrier that had served the Soviet Union, gave up its Moscow route in October, 1978, for economic reasons.

Dole Announcement

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

“President Reagan said he hoped his summit with General Secretary (Mikhail) Gorbachev would help bring the people of our nations together,” she said. “This agreement is an immediate step in that direction.”

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

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

Four Flights a Week

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. They will go 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.”

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

Major Hang-up

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said financial arrangements for Pan Am, which had been the major hang-up in the talks, had been worked out satisfactorily.

“Since the beginning of the negotiations, we have insisted that any agreement which would permit Aeroflot to resume service to the United States would have to provide a fair opportunity for a U.S. air carrier serving the Soviet Union,” he said. “This agreement meets that objective.”

It was the second aviation agreement announced by Washington following 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 be six to eight months before the system is operational.

In response to the shooting down of the KAL jetliner, the Administration had shut down Aeroflot offices in the United States and ordered its employees out of the country.