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Christmas Travel

Volume 455: debated on Tuesday 9 January 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence further to the letter of 2 October 2006 to Wing Commander Conway from the hon. Member for North East Milton Keynes, what improvements have been made to the air bridge from (a) Afghanistan and (b) Iraq to avoid delays for troops travelling home over the Christmas period. (112802)

The safe and expeditious recovery of our forces returning from operational theatres is a high priority. Troop movement is generally working well and between April and December 2006, 80 per cent. of RAF operational passenger air transport flights were on time or delayed by less than three hours. For Iraq this figure was 86 per cent. and for Afghanistan it was 75 per cent. Recent improvements to the Afghanistan air-bridge include refurbishment of the runway at Kandahar Airfield, which was completed in November 2006. This now allows troops to fly from an airport closer to the majority of deployed locations, reducing in-theatre journeys by up to 24 hours.