Voluntary hurricane relief effort by airlines, including Air Canada, begins
Leslie Miller
Canadian Press
Sunday, September 04, 2005
WASHINGTON (CP) - Relief flights donated by airlines, including Air Canada, began to fly into Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans at a rate of about four an hour, beginning midday Friday.
An Air Canada Airbus A-321 carrying bottled water and relief supplies left Toronto Friday bound for New Orleans, said airline spokeswoman Laura Cooke. The plane is capable of carrying up to 166 passengers and 5,600 kilograms of cargo.
"We've only been permitted to send one flight so we sent the largest aircraft that we were permitted to send," said Cooke.
U.S. Transportation Department spokesman Greg Martin said the planes will be bringing in supplies and leaving with people. Most of the flights will take refugees to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
The first flight on Friday, he said, was a Spirit Airlines MD-83.
The airport building and runway weren't damaged much by hurricane Katrina, but navigational aids such as radar and runway lights weren't working.
Martin said the Federal Aviation Administration was able to establish limited operations within a day of the hurricane. Work over the past few days allowed the airport and air traffic control to sustain a more systematic relief effort Friday.
Air traffic controllers in New Orleans are handling about 300 flights at any given time, Martin said. "All of them are providing humanitarian relief," he said.
The airport is now able to handle nighttime flights thanks to runway lights provided by the military, he said.
More than a dozen passenger airlines and their crews volunteered to provide emergency airlift to more than 25,000 New Orleans residents stranded after hurricane Katrina.
They are Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, America West, American Airlines, ATA, Continental, Delta Air Lines, Jet Blue, Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways.
Air Canada will operate shuttle flights on a continuous basis over the next several days to assist, along with other airlines, in moving out approximately 25,000 people to the safety of Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
"We wanted so much to be involved in this type of effort," said Cooke. "We had absolutely no problem finding volunteers to go down. We probably had to turn people away. It's something that we do in a desire to help."
Cargo carriers, including UPS, FedEX and ASTAR Air Cargo are also helping out.
James May, president of the airline trade group Air Transport Association, said Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson called him late Thursday afternoon to ask if the airlines were willing to fly people out of New Orleans.
"I checked with a couple of our carriers and the answer was, 'Absolutely,"' May said.
Some of the first planes ferried in law enforcement officers, federal air marshals and Transportation Security Administration screeners, he said.
Screening evacuees was necessary, May said, because they're anxious and stressed and some have guns.
"There's not a lot to screen," May said. "It's just individuals and a whole lot of plastic bags with not much in them."
Hundreds of private pilots have contacted their trade group, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, asking what they can do to help, said Chris Dancy, AOPA spokesman.
Some pilots have set up a shuttle service out of Baton Rouge, La., to evacuate high-risk people to Texas. Others are flying damage-assessment missions over the damaged region and bringing in critical supplies.
A pilot in Louisville, Ky., is recruiting pilots to work with a group called Vacation Rentals for Families.com that is finding people who will open their vacation homes to Katrina evacuees.
© The Canadian Press 2005
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