US military airspace opened for holiday travel

President Bush has announced that military airspace across much of the U.S. will be opened to commercial aircraft temporarily to help ease the congestion that typically accompanies the busy holiday travel season.

In making this announcement, the president added that he was committed to the sale of flight slots by auction at New York City’s three largest airports before the end of his term in January of 2009. Opponents of the plan are trying to block the slots auction both in Congress and in the courts.

During the Thanksgiving holiday week last year, President Bush permitted commercial services to fly in two military airspace corridors along the east coast of the U.S. The decision is credited with preventing many of the delays that had plagued air passengers during the holiday period for years.

This year, military airspace will be opened up in the Midwest and southwest as along the east coast. The opening of the space to commercial air traffic will be in effect over the Christmas holidays as well, as necessary.

“In other words, we innovated last year to ease the travel; it worked, and now we’re expanding that innovation this year,” President Bush said in remarks delivered at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Department of Transportation.

Thanks to www.nytimes.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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