Budget cutsAir Force, DoD curtailing air activity

Federal budget cuts are starting to take their toll. Department of Defense (DoD) comptroller Robert Hale has sent out updated travel guidelines to DoD employees, which take account of  the $46 billion being cut from the Pentagon’s budget.

DOD will “enforce strict” limitations on travel by congressional delegations and their staffs. Originally, DOD policy provided military transportation for certain trips, including overseas travel.

AL.com reports that now, the DoD will allow travel “only where the purpose of the travel is of primary interest and bears a substantial relationship” to Pentagon activities and is not “solely for the purpose of engendering goodwill or obtaining possible future benefits.”

Congressional travel within the continental United States will not be allowed on DoD planes. The only flights which will be allowed will be in combat zones where commercial flights are unavailable. If spouses want to travel they will have to pay their own expenses.

DoD will purchase tickets for commercial flights for a member of congress, but it will only be an economy class ticket and DOD will not pay for any member of the staff to travel to their home district.

Other provisions include:

• Monetary awards given to civilians at the discretion of their supervisor are ceased. Only bonuses required by law or union agreements will be honored.
• All aerial demonstrations including flyovers, jump team demonstrations, and participation in civilian air shows will cease as of 1 April. The Air Force’s flight demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, has already cancelled its 2013 season. Officials with the Blue Angels have not announced its plans past the end of March.
• Military musical  and ceremonial units will not be allowed to travel outside their local area.
• Participation in foreign events, except those involving foreign military sales, is halted.
• All DoD support for outreach activities, such as military equipment displays in parades, is stopped unless equipment can be provided locally and at no cost or reimbursement is paid.

The Air Force’s reserve and guard units will immediately cease all aviation support to public events, including air shows, tradeshows, flyovers (including funerals and military graduations), orientation flights, heritage flights, and F-22 demonstration flights.

The Air Force had no choice but to cancel these flights as aerial support to public and military events is flown at no additional cost to the taxpayer, using allotted training hours. They will also reduce flying hours by 18 percent, which comes out to approximately 203,000 hours.

“While we will protect flying operations in Afghanistan and other contingency areas, nuclear deterrence and initial flight training, roughly two-thirds of our active-duty combat Air Force units will curtail home station training,” Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said in a statement.