The Civil Reserve Air Fleet was activated Sunday by the Pentagon to help evacuation efforts in Afghanistan.
In order to move people out of the country, the Pentagon is using six commercial airlines and having them fly into other areas besides the airport in Kabul. The airlines being used are American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Airlines, Omni Air, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines.
CRAF has only been activated two other times in history. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin tweeted Sunday that the activation is currently stage 1 and 18 aircraft will “be used to fly passengers out from temporary safe havens and interim staging bases”.
The DOD’s ability to project military forces is inextricably linked to commercial industry, which provides critical transportation capacity as well as global networks to meet day-to-day and contingency requirement.
The pentagon
During Operations Desert Shield/Storm in 1990 and 1991, CRAF was first activated to help out. The second activation was in 2002 and 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
United Airlines first flight flew Sunday from Frankfurt-Hahn Airport to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. It is expected to fly back to the US after stopping in Germany to refuel. The airline is using four Boeing 777-300 planes to evacuate people from Afghanistan. Each plane holds 350 passengers.
