Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered U.S. commercial airlines to provide planes to assist in Afghanistan evacuation of U.S. personnel and Afghans after the activation of Stage I of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet CRAF), the Pentagon said early Sunday.
CRAF activation provides the Department of Defense access to commercial air mobility resources to augment our support to the Department of State in the evacuation of U.S. citizens and personnel, Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and other at-risk individuals from Afghanistan.
The current activation is for 18 aircraft: three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air; two from Hawaiian Airlines; and four from United Airlines, according to a news release from the Pentagon. The Department does not anticipate a major impact to commercial flights from the activation, It added.
The Department of Defense said that the CRAF activated aircraft will not fly into Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Instead, they will be used to move passengers from temporary safe havens and interim staging bases.
This is the third CRAF activation in the history of the program. The first occurred in support of Operations Desert Shield/Storm (Aug. 1990 to May 1991), and the second was for Operation Iraqi Freedom (Feb. 2002 to June 2003).
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