Tue, Apr 13, 2004
Pentagon Eyes Use Of Foreign Carriers
If the Pentagon has its way, foreign
air carriers could soon join a club that has so far been
exclusively American. They would be able to contract with the
military to haul troops and supplies to the four corners of the
globe.
Until now, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet has been limited to 24 US
carriers. Last fall, the Department of Defense reported spending
$1.2 billion to fly almost a half-million troops and 161,000 tons
of equipment to and from Iraq. That report was filed even as the
commercial airline business continued to suffer through one of its
worst-ever slumps in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and last year's
SARS outbreaks. The activation provided starving airlines -- two of
which had gone bankrupt -- a ray of hope in an otherwise desolate
economic environment.
But in its 2005 appropriations requests to Congress, DoD asked
lawmakers to repeal the law barring foreign carriers from engaging
in Civil Reserve Air Fleet operations.
The Civil Reserve Air Fleet was created by President Harry
Truman to get troops and equipment to a war zone in a hurry. Since
its formation in 1951, the fleet has only been activated twice --
once in 1991, during the first Persian Gulf War and again during
the Iraq invasion last year.
The New York Times reports the Pentagon pays 8.5 cents per mile
for each seat on an activated Civil Reserve aircraft. But because
there is excess capacity among airlines in Europe right now and
because some US carriers have been reluctant to participate in
troop rotations, the Pentagon has decided to look beyond our
borders. In doing so, some industry analysts think the Pentagon
could negotiate the per-seat/per-mile price down to about a
nickel.
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