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Redeployment mission success comes to Transit Center: ‘Port Dawgs’ help transport precious cargo with a smile

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Alexandria Mosness
  • Air Forces Central Public Affairs
TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan --  Editor's Note: President Obama ordered a drawdown of surge troops to no later than Sept. 30, 2012. This article is the final part in a three part series on the men and women who are working hard to redeploy combat forces in Afghanistan during the transition of security control to the Afghan National Security Forces. Redeployment is the result of the success of the transition process and the return of control of territory to the Afghan people. Redeployment is the natural outcome of successful Transition to an Afghan lead for security. The ANSF will assume the lead in securing a stable and peaceful future for Afghanistan before Dec. 31, 2014.

The first faces servicemembers see after getting off an aircraft from downrange are members of the 376th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron aerial port flight.

They are the vehicle operators and "Port Dawg" bus drivers directing the servicemembers to the busses, so in-processing can start. This is not all the aerial porters do. The military members will continue seeing them everywhere in the short amount of time they are at the Transit Center at Manas while they are waiting to go home.
"We run our own mini airline," said Maj. Travis Hatley, 376th ELRS aerial port flight commander."Everything you would see on a commercial flight, we have here."

Commercial airlines have many more people to do the task at hand. There are approximately 90 Airmen who run the busiest Passenger Terminal in all of Department of Defense.

"They perform multiple jobs in multiple locations on the Transit Center," Hatley said. "This includes driving busses, load-planning aircraft, moving pallets, weighing pallets, building baggage pallets, loading aircraft, manifesting passengers, roll calls, customer service, processing emergency leave passengers back to the States, and conducting cargo inventories. This all happens in a compressed schedule."

The aerial port flight tries to get passengers out within 72-hours after they arrive at the Transit Center.

With the recent redeployment of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the aerial porters have seen an increase in the amount of people they process through the passenger terminal.

About 2,000 people pass through the PAX terminal a day, Hatley said. That's about 15,000 people a week. The aerial port flight has moved about 400,000 passengers so far this year. That number will jump to approximately 550,000 the end of December. The aerial porters also transport more 90 tons of cargo a week.

"Our primary mission is to provide reception and onward movement of Coalition forces into and out of the Afghanistan theater," Hatley said. "We process passengers in Global Air Transportation Execution System and provide in-transit visibility to the combatant commander on a daily basis."

The flight has other missions as well.

"They include providing oversight on all commercial missions, providing a three-day airlift forecast into and out of the TCM, load planning all military aircraft for optimum utilization and loading, and unloading all cargo and mail for the base," Hatley said.

Without the work the aerial port flight does, the mission would grind to a halt.

"We are the key linkage to the Joint Movement Control Center as the service liaison to validate passenger movement to ensure the right personnel packages leave on time," he added. "We ensure they are booked and moved on the correct flights."

The Passenger Terminal here is the busiest throughout the DOD, but for the last four and a half months, they have not had a single aerial port mission delay.

"[We have accomplished this through] commitment to the mission, experienced leadership, and pride in a job well done," Hatley said. "My total force team quickly came together and believed in each other to achieve our goal, which is to provide best-in-class customer service. They never lost sight of the fact that we need to treat people like we would want to be treated, and that means going the extra mile every day to make the mission happen."

With the surge, the already busy Port Dawgs have felt the tempo increase, but this has not stopped them from providing world-class customer service.

"The operations tempo has increased the intensity of the daily workload," he added. "This has created additional work, where my personnel must continually multi-task to achieve mission success. They all have stepped up to the plate, during a very intense time."

There are two sides to the aerial port flight, passenger and freight.

The freight side deals with all the cargo, making sure everything goes through customs, palletizing, load-planning, and transporting baggage from one place to another.

The other side is those who deal with the passengers.

"Our goal is to provide them with a friendly environment," said Staff Sgt. Edger Gaitan, 376th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron passenger service representative. "We want to be able to keep them as comfortable as possible. We want them to feel like they are going to be taken care of."

Customs and the process before a flight can leave the passengers in lockdown in the passenger terminal for hours, but the passenger terminal Airmen will do everything in their power to make them comfortable.
"We will escort them over to the chow hall, so they can have food while they wait," said Master Sgt. Daryl Davis, 376th ELRS Passenger Terminal non-commissioned officer in-charge.

While waiting for their flight, the Airmen at the terminal try to give the passengers a little taste of home.

"There are snacks, coffee, care packages, and toiletries," Gaitan said. "All of this is free for the passengers. "There is also Wi-Fi and phones so they can call home."

The Transit Center Airmen know that every passenger has either been living in hardship for up to a year or just left behind the place in which they were most comfortable and have challenges ahead.

"We want to be that soft spot in the in-between," Davis said. "We realize they are either going or coming from Afghanistan. This is a less stressful environment, and we want them to be able to relax."