Foreign Airlines for Troop movements?

[FlyBoeingJets]

Another Republican money saving idea.



Pentagon Seeks to Use Foreign Airlines
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Published: April 10, 2004

The Pentagon is asking Congress for the authority to award contracts to foreign airlines to move troops and equipment, a business that has always been limited to - and been lucrative for - American-based carriers...

...Specifically, the Defense Department is seeking to repeal Section 2710 of the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2003. That section requires that contracts be awarded to air carriers with American ownership of 50 percent or more...

The analysis did not mention the reserve fleet, but industry officials said the request, if approved by Congress, could lead to competition from foreign carriers.

Word of the request was first disclosed yesterday in an Internet newsletter, Inside the Air Force. A spokesman for the Air Force's Transportation Command, based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, confirmed the request.

Participants in the reserve fleet sign up for government contracts to transport troops around the world in peacetime. In return, they agree to turn over their planes on short notice, for 30 days at a time, to move soldiers and gear during emergency wartime mobilizations....

Last year's mobilization proved a lifeline for participating airlines, which had been battered by a drop in traffic because of fears over the outbreak of war, a weakened economy and the SARS virus. ...

The biggest passenger carriers participating in the reserve fleet last year were ATA Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Continental Airlines, and the charter airline World Airways, according to the Pentagon.
Officials at the Air Transport Association, which represents domestic airlines, did not return calls seeking comment....

Competition could bring down the price that the military pays to transport troops, he said.

 

[General Lee]

Fly home from Iraq on an Egypt Air 777. That would be fun! (Didn't we have 11 MD-11s that we COULD HAVE used for MAC charters? We are still paying $15,000 a day for each--sitting in the desert. Sounds like our fault again.....)


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[FLB717]

Doesn't Iraqi Airways have a few aircraft just sitting around, we could contract with them!

What idiot thought this idea up.

 

[General Lee]

They had a 747SP I think---but we may have shot it's rudder off...Hey, Afganistan has an airline now--Ariana---and it has some old A300s and a couple 727s too than could be ferried from Kabul over to Baghdad easily. That would be really cheap!

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[fredflyer]

Doesn't Iraqi Airways have a few aircraft just sitting around, we could contract with them!

I've got a few good pictures of their fleet....... if I could only figure out how to post them on the internet..

 

[typhoonpilot]

This is not a good idea for many reasons, not the least of which is safety. If they start going with the low bidder I wouldn't want to be on any of the airplanes they get. Witness the 62 Spanish soldiers killed on their way back from Afghanistan last year when their chartered Ukrainian Yak 42 crashed in poor visibility at Trabzon in northern Turkey. Bet the Spanish or NATO wished they had paid a little more money for a decent charter company after that accident. PPrune has a thread on it under Rumours and News just search under Trabzon crash.

Typhoonpilot

 

[Cpt. Underpants]

Typhoon

Being American doesn't insulate a company from being negligent or stupid either - Valujet and the Arrow Air crash at Gander come to mind. What's really needed is due dilligence by the GAO.

Nothing is wrong with the lowest bidder as long as they have been properly audited and maybe a LOSA carried out.

 

[typhoonpilot]

I agree, Cathay, Emirates, Singapore, Lufthansa, etc. would probably be safer than most U.S. carriers but if the chartering of Ukrainian Yak 42s is any indication of the direction they want to go then I would be against it.

Typhoonpilot

 

[CatYaaak]

I agree, Cathay, Emirates, Singapore, Lufthansa, etc. would probably be safer than most U.S. carriers..."
Typhoonpilot

Not only that, if you were a soldier who would you rather have as your Flight Attendants just before going into or coming out of a war zone? A planeful of; (a) single, smiling, 20-something Emirates babes, or (b) grumpy Delta senior mamas with a smattering of way-too-smiley single guys who obviously want to take a closer look at your "gear"?

 

[DrinkSweetTea]

Im guessing that after fighting for one year, Id be glad to see an american flight attendant regardless of age.

 

[CatYaaak]

Im guessing that after fighting for one year, Id be glad to see an american flight attendant regardless of age.

The question is, who would you rather see?

 

[FLB717]

An American F/A. Becuase then I don't have to work about my Jack and Coke tip going to some terorrist cells of her brothers like Hamas or a Homicide Bomber as a F/A.

 

[CatYaaak]

An American F/A. Becuase then I don't have to work about my Jack and Coke tip going to some terorrist cells of her brothers like Hamas or a Homicide Bomber as a F/A.

Most Emirates (or Gulf Air, Quatar, etc.) F/As, like their pilots, are expats... Brit, Aussie, Irish, Phillipine, or Eastern Europe, and some American nationals. No worries there. Say, how many Jack and Coke's did you have before you wrote this?

 

[TBF]

Fly home from Iraq on an Egypt Air 777. That would be fun! (Didn't we have 11 MD-11s that we COULD HAVE used for MAC charters? We are still paying $15,000 a day for each--sitting in the desert. Sounds like our fault again.....)


Bye Bye---General Lee

World Airways is leasing a few of those MD-11s and using them for AMC charters. There is plenty of uplift capacity in the US CRAF fleet! Nothing like kicking the industry when it is down.

 

[General Lee]

TBF,

I know, we just gave you some of our MD-11s, and we still have 11 left that we are paying for each day (I think $15,000 each) to sit in the desert. We also still use some 767ERs and maybe some 777s for the MAC program......I know Omni and ATA are also involved to a large extent---but the Pentagon wants cheaper foreign airlines to do it......I doubt that will happen, and I am happy someone in the press brought this story out....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[pipejockey]

I agree, Cathay, Emirates, Singapore, Lufthansa, etc. would probably be safer than most U.S. carriers
Typhoonpilot

I am in utter and complete shock at that statement! Why would the above named airlines be safer than a US carrier?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by FLB717
An American F/A. Becuase then I don't have to work about my Jack and Coke tip going to some terorrist cells of her brothers like Hamas or a Homicide Bomber as a F/A.

Agree with you 100% FLB717. Id rather have that wrinkly old Delta hag, or some smiley faced guy, they are Americans! The last thing I want to see is the face of the people Ive just been trying to avoid being killed by.

 

[FLB717]

CatYaak,

I had none prior to that post, if I did might have got to a point and offended someone.

 

[Dizel8]

"Being American doesn't insulate a company from being negligent or stupid either - Valujet and the Arrow Air crash at Gander come to mind."

Hmmm, several good articles on big A at Gander, most seem to believe some shady things took placed, fully backed by a certain goverment. When was the last time you heard of things being removed from a crash site, before the NTSB had a chance to look at it or wreckage being bulldozed into the ground?

From one source:
"Dr. David Elcombe, director of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB), released the Canadians' toxicological findings on March 5, 1986, although they were not presented at any public hearings. These results presented problems for the "instantaneous" death theory posed by Dr. McMeekin. The consensus between the two governments was that there was no pre-impact explosion. Therefore the story went something like this: everyone was alive, then several seconds later, all aboard perished immediately when the plane contacted the ground as a result of wing icing, and erupted in a ball of fire. This is where Dr. Elcombe's findings pose a problem. Many of the bodies contained high levels of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, both products of combustion. (1:37-38) An accepted guideline used by pathologists is that these products cannot enter the tissue of the body by any means other than respiration. So according to Dr. Elcombe, 256 people who died "instantaneously" have high levels of combustion products which they would have had to have inhaled. To make this important piece of evidence fit into the accepted "no explosion" theory, the survival time after the crash was increased from zero seconds to almost five minutes. The families were being asked to deal with the nightmarish possibility that their loved ones sat living, within a fiery inferno of jet fuel for almost five minutes. Interestingly, many of the bodies that had high levels of combustion products in their lungs were also decapitated, yet according to the official report, they somehow kept breathing five minutes after being dismembered. This could be exactly why Dr. Elcombe sent a memo to Dr. McMeekin dated June 20, 1986 stating: "Some of the carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide values are striking ... and I look forward to meeting with you ... to consider their significance." (2:167)"

 

[typhoonpilot]

I am in utter and complete shock at that statement! Why would the above named airlines be safer than a US carrier?

Fatal Event Rate Since 1975: ( Rate per million departures )

Mind you most major foreign airlines have a much lower number of departures than U.S. carriers that typically have thousands of departures per day so one accident can skew the statistics.

Air Canada .33
American .50
Delta .16 ( The General is going to be happy )
Northwest .28
United .37
USAirways .35
Southwest 0
AirTran 5.88 ( Sorry Ty )
British Airways .22
Lufthansa .19
Cathay 0
Virgin Atlantic 0
Emirates 0
Qantas 0
Singapore .75 ( One fatal accident ever )
Egypt Air 7.6 ( Just since somebody mentioned them )


So, with the exception of Singapore my statement is statisically correct. Are you still in complete and utter shock ?

I have flown all over the world as both a passenger and a pilot and I would ride on the airlines I mentioned anyday and feel very safe. While I wouldn't feel unsafe on a U.S. carrier, I was just trying to make a point that the U.S. doesn't have the market on safety cornered.

If you look back at my original post in this thread I think it is a bad idea to pursue a plan to outsource military airlift to foreign airlines because I'm afraid the government would go with the low bidder, read unsafe airline that cuts corners.


Typhoonpilot

 

[General Lee]

Typhoonpilot,

Well, infact I am proud of our record---and I hope it improves. (knock on wood) Maybe there is a lack of larger airplanes (only NW and UA have 744s for US carriers)--and the pentagon wants more for its money. I just think they should try to support the home team, but many foreign airlines fly charters for the Hajj---not just Saudia. Maybe it is a cost issue, and maybe Singapore could do it for cheaper---and we know the stews over there are hot---so our troops would like that.....Even though our troops get the "Grandma treatment" from our Delta stews (most are Grandmas)........Take care and have fun on that 777.

Bye Bye--General Lee