Air Traffic Increases Fourfold at Frankfurt
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FRANKFURT, West Germany — Military air traffic at the main U.S. air base in Europe has increased fourfold to meet the Persian Gulf crisis in the biggest operation since the Berlin airlift, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Military and commercial transport planes carrying troops and cargo to Saudi Arabia from the United States are taking off and landing at Rhine Main Air Base near Frankfurt at a rate of up to 50 a day, said base commander Col. Thomas Mikolajcik.
“Over 40 years ago a multinational force took a stand,” he said in reference to the 1948-49 airlift to West Berlin to circumvent a Soviet blockade during the Cold War.
“Today history repeats itself but on a much larger scale and over greater distances.”
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