All troops flying home will go through Atlanta - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

All troops flying home will go through Atlanta

Service members on their way home on leave from the war zone will soon all fly into Atlanta.

The Army is closing its personnel assistance point at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which has been in operation since May 2004.

More than 462,000 troops have passed through Dallas/Fort Worth on rest and relaxation leave, but the conclusion of operations in Iraq and the Army’s transition to nine-month tours means fewer troops will be traveling to and from the war zone during their deployments.

Soldiers on nine-month deployments do not receive the two-week mid-tour leave.

The new deployment length and the drawdown of troops in the Central Command area of operations reduces the number of troops eligible for R&R to about 15 percent of those deployed, said Hank Minitrez, an Army spokesman.

The last flight into Dallas/Fort Worth is expected to arrive on March 14, Minitrez said. Operations at the personnel assistance point there will be moved to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport by April 1.

About 60 percent of troops traveling for R&R fly into Atlanta anyway, Minitrez said.

Hartsfield-Jackson is the world’s busiest airport, with nearly 90 million passengers each year.

In total, more than 1 million service members have traveled through Atlanta or Dallas as part of the R&R program, Minitrez said.

“As the number of deployed service members decreases, so does the number of [ports] required to support the Rest and Recuperation program,” Minitrez said. “The overarching principle leading to the recommendation to keep the [Atlanta PAP] open and close the [Dallas PAP] was the capability to optimize and expedite the R&R leave participants’ travel.”