Airlines See No Airlift Disruptions : Transportation: Business or vacationing travelers won’t be inconvenienced, officials are confident.
Passengers and cargo senders will experience no schedule disruptions because of the diversion of as many as 38 U.S. commercial airliners to airlift troops and supplies to Saudi Arabia, several major airlines said Saturday.
“We think there is enough flexibility in the schedule. We don’t anticipate that business or vacationing travelers will be inconvenienced,” said Glenda Hatchett Johnson, spokeswoman for Delta Air Lines. She noted that Delta schedules 2,400 flights daily worldwide.
Johnson and other airline officials were less sure of how the program would affect schedules over a longer period, however. “I don’t want to give the impression that we have a bunch of spare planes,” she said.
“The military can’t expect companies so highly integrated and complex to respond on short notice indefinitely,” T. Allan McArtor, a senior vice president for Federal Express, told the Associated Press. “Naturally, we respond to a national emergency, but we need to plan together.”
Friday night, the Pentagon ordered 16 U.S. airlines to provide planes and volunteer crews for “several weeks” under a “Stage One” alert in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a system not used since its creation during the Korean War. Planes called up during the first stage could include DC-8s and wide-body 747s, DC-10s and L10-11s.
Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and Delta are among the 29 carriers that could ultimately be called into service. Federal Express Corp., United Parcel Service, and a number of smaller cargo carriers are also in the fleet.
“Sixty-two of our airplanes are part of the program,” said United Airlines spokesman Rob Doughty. “For security reasons, we cannot give details.”
The U.S. military charters domestic airliners routinely, during peacetime as well as in emergencies.
The Civil Reserve Air Fleet, however, was created by executive order of President Harry S. Truman in 1951, under the Defense Production Act, as part of a larger effort to bolster U.S. military capability in the Far East. The Korean conflict ran from 1950 to 1953.
Under the volunteer system, airliners commit themselves to delivering a certain number of planes and crews within 24 hours’ notice from the Pentagon. In this case, Gen. H. T. Johnson, commander in chief of the U.S. Transportation Command, issued the order to the airlines when bottlenecks began to appear in the Mideast airlift.
Air Force Lt. Col. Phil LaCombe of the Military Airlift Command noted Saturday that the planes available to the command have decreased since the Vietnam War.
LaCombe said that the 7,000-mile flight to Saudi Arabia from the East Coast takes from 15 to 17 hours each way.
Stage Two and Stage Three alerts under the Civil Reserve Air Fleet would be activated by the secretary of defense. Under Stage Two, almost 200 more airplanes would be requested. Under Stage Three, which comes with a declaration of a national emergency, all 29 carriers would participate and more than 500 planes would be called up.
The airline companies are reimbursed by the Pentagon under longstanding contracts, much as they are for routine charter work. Several airline representatives said they expect no financial setback from their participation. In fact, according to one airline spokesman who asked not to be named, carriers receive military business and contracts as part of their contractual relationship under the reserve fleet system.
Major airlines identified by military sources as Civil Reserve Air Fleet carriers include: American Airlines, American Trans Air, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eastern Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Pan American World Airways, Tower Air, Trans World Airlines and United Airlines.
Cargo, charter and regional carriers include: Arrow Air, Miami; ATI; Connie Kalitta Services, Ypsilanti, Mich.; Emery Worldwide, Wilton, Conn.; Evergreen Intl. Airlines, McMinnville, Ore.; Express One, Dallas; Federal Express, Memphis; Key Airlines, Herndon, Va.; Northern Air Cargo, Anchorage, Alaska; Reeve Aleutian Airways Inc., Anchorage; Rosenbalm Aviation, Ypsilanti, Mich.; Southern Air Transport, Miami; Sun Country, Minneapolis; TPI Intl. Airways, Miami; Trans Continental Airlines, Ypsilanti, Mich.; United Parcel Service, Greenwich, Conn.; World; Zantop Intl. Airlines, Ypsilanti, Mich.
