The United States on Sunday ordered six commercial airlines to help transport people after their evacuation from Afghanistan as Washington sought to step up the pace of departures of Americans and at-risk Afghans from Kabul.
The commercial planes won’t fly in or out of the Kabul, but will help transport Afghans and US citizens who have arrived at bases in Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the planes would help move Afghans from the bases in the Middle East to places in Europe, and some to the US. Thousands of Afghans have arrived at the bases attempting to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban take over.
The move highlights the difficulty Washington is having in carrying out the evacuations following the Taliban’s swift takeover. It is only the third time the US military has employed civilian aircraft.
Thousands of people remained outside the Kabul international airport on Sunday hoping to be evacuated as Taliban gunman beat back crowds.
“We need more planes in the mix,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
So far eighteen planes will be provided by the airlines. Four aircraft will come from United Airlines, three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air, and two from Hawaiian Airlines.
The aircraft will not fly into Kabul in what the Pentagon described as stage 1 of the program, suggesting more commercial aircraft could be activated later.
American and Delta said they would start relief flights on Monday and, along with other carriers, welcomed the call to aid the US military amid the humanitarian crisis.
“American … is proud to fulfill its duty to help the U.S. military scale this humanitarian and diplomatic rescue mission. The images from Afghanistan are heartbreaking,” it said in a statement.
The Pentagon said it did not expect the operation to have “a major impact” on commercial flights.
Delta separately said its commercial operations were unaffected, while American said it “will work to minimize the impact to customers as the airline temporarily removes these aircraft from our operation.” United said it was still assessing the impact but expected it “to be minimal.”
In the past 24 hours, about 3,900 people have been evacuated from Kabul on 35 coalition aircraft, including commercial airlines, and 3,900 others on 23 US military flights, according to the White House. Altogether about 25,100 people have been evacuated since Aug. 14.
The United States’ last utilized the “Civil Reserve Air Fleet” during the build up to and invasion of Iraq (Feb. 2002 to June 2003) and previously during the Gulf War (Aug. 1990 to May 1991).
Limited numbers of aircraft are just one of the issues facing the evacuation from Afghanistan that has evacuees being sent to a dozen countries.
Officials have said they are also frustrated with slow processing by the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, and there is increasing concern about security in Kabul.
The United States and its allies have brought in several thousand troops to manage the evacuations of foreign citizens and vulnerable Afghans, but have stayed away from areas outside of the Kabul airport.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN the United States has “secured the capacity to get large numbers of Americans safe passage through the airport and onto the airfield” in Afghanistan, but gave no details.