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Airline shutdown causes delays for troops

The shutdown of ATA Airlines is creating problems for service members after all.

Despite promises to the contrary, troops are waiting in Kuwait longer than necessary before they can come home from the war zone.

ATA was under contract to provide 70 military charter flights through September when it abruptly shut down April 3, a day after its second bankruptcy filing in about three years. The airline provided the flights as part of the FedEx Teaming Arrangement, an eight-airline group, but FedEx had informed ATA that it would be ousted from the group in October, the start of fiscal year 2009.

In an April 10 interview, FedEx spokeswoman Sandra Munoz said all of ATA’s flights would be honored by the FedEx team, but, The State newspaper of South Carolina reported April 17 that the Army National Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team’s flight home from Kuwait was being delayed in connection with logistical problems stemming from the ATA shutdown.

Army Lt. Col. Frederick Rice, a spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command, which overseas military charter flights, confirmed that redeployment flights from Kuwait are expected to be delayed two to six days for the next several weeks. “The impact on the system [of the ATA shutdown] is being felt throughout the system,” Rice said, including deployment and other flights.

Munoz declined to discuss FedEx’s efforts to alleviate delays, citing company policy of not discussing dealings with customers; in this case, the military.

“We’re doing everything we can to bring our service members home,” Rice said. TransCom is coordinating with the FedEx team and Central Command, and also “working with other air carriers to see if they can sort of step up, increase their own busy operations even just a little bit further to fill some of those gaps.”

Rice was unable to identify by press time which units are affected by the flight delays.

According to Sgt. Douglas DeMaio, an Army Central Command spokesman, the entertainment offerings on base in Kuwait keep most troops happy while they wait for flights.

“There was talk of [the ATA shutdown] on post here,” DeMaio said. “Obviously it had a little effect, but nothing significant.”

But some soldiers’ stateside family members disagree.

One woman contacted by Air Force Times said her son is a member of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 143rd Field Artillery Regiment, and had been scheduled to come home around April 19, but was delayed until April 26 at the earliest. She and at least one other parent from Vermont contacted federal lawmakers about the issue.

Vermont Sens. Bernard Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch responded by sending a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 22, asking which units had been delayed, for how long, and what was being done to bring those troops home.

“To be told within days of shipping out that your trip home has been delayed until a date uncertain is demoralizing,” the letter said. “Unnecessary delays also result in additional troops remaining in a war zone beyond when their presence serves any constructive purpose for the war-fighting effort.”

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