Commercial Aircraft Called Up

With the pace of military deployments to the Persian Gulf reaching what one military official on Monday called “warp speed,” the Pentagon is pressing commercial airlines into service to transport troops for only the second time in history.

The initial call-up of 47 passenger planes from the nation’s major carriers enables the Pentagon to supplement its overtaxed air fleet to ferry tens of thousands of troops to the Middle East in the next several weeks as planning for military action against Iraq continues.

More than 135,000 U.S. military personnel are now in the gulf region, and that number is expected to exceed 200,000 by the end of February.

Among the troops who will be ferried aboard the aircraft ordered into service under the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program are the more than 15,000 of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, headquartered at Ft. Campbell, Ky., who received orders last week to deploy to the gulf.

Airlines have 24 to 48 hours to provide the needed aircraft under the order, issued by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The civilian air fleet was established in 1951 as a way to boost airlift capacity in times of crisis. Under the program, airlines agree to lend planes and crews to the military in wartime for a fee and the promise of government business in peacetime.

The only other time the program was officially activated was in 1990-91, in the buildup to the Persian Gulf War and during the war itself. The program ferried more than 400,000 troops to the gulf region during that period.

Airline industry leaders, anticipating demand for their aircraft, had been in negotiations with the military for months before the current call-up. With more than 900 passenger planes mothballed due to the slump in air travel, the Pentagon move will take up some slack.

The airlines get no money if the Pentagon commandeers planes and then lets them sit unused. To minimize the chances of that happening, the Pentagon agreed to commandeer only a limited number of planes initially, military officials and industry sources said.

“The way the Pentagon has done this has been very responsive,” said Ron Priddy, a spokesman for the National Air Carrier Assn. “At this level of participation, I don’t believe that any air carrier has been damaged, particularly in light of what they will be paid, and assuming that the Department of Defense will be able to use all the huge airlift that they have called up. The problem is whether these aircraft will sit because they have been called up.”

Under Rumsfeld’s order, officials have the authority to call up 78 aircraft: 47 passenger planes and 31 wide-body cargo planes. But for now, the U.S. Transportation Command has enough cargo planes and is calling only the passenger aircraft, said Navy Capt. Steve Honda, a spokesman for the command.

Eleven carriers signed up for this first stage of mobilization: American, American Trans Air, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, North American, Northwest, Omni Air International, United, US Airways and World Airways.

Rumsfeld has already ordered the deployment of two 7,000-member Marine amphibious task forces and the Army’s 3rd and 4th infantry divisions, mechanized units equipped with hundreds of M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Those divisions have been moving their troops to bases in the gulf region on commercial craft. The military still has thousands more troops to ferry abroad.