Space-available air travel, more commonly known simply as “space A,” is a perk of military service that enables service members and their families to fly both domestically and internationally for free. When there are extra seats on Department of Defense-owned or controlled aircraft, and the mission allows for it, the seats are made available to eligible passengers.

Eligible passengers include active duty, reserve and retired service members; military family members; Reserve Officers’ Training Corps participants; and certain government civilians based overseas. Veterans who are not retirees are not eligible for space A travel.

According to publications from Air Mobility Command, the Air Force command organization that oversees a large portion of space A travel, seats are given to passengers according to the category they fall under. The six categories are as follows:

1. Emergency leave



2. Environmental morale leave



3. Ordinary leave/house hunting



4. Unaccompanied EML



5. Unaccompanied permissive temporary additional duty



6. Retired, Reserves/Guard, ROTC

Seats are also given out in order of the date and time of sign-up for a flight. While a higher-category passenger will be given a seat before a lower-category passenger, regardless of when the two individuals signed up, passengers within each category are given seats in order of sign-up date and time.

AMC operates 16 passenger terminals in the continental United States, one each in Alaska and Hawaii, and 20 terminals overseas, according to its website. Each of the AMC passenger terminals operates a Facebook page where it regularly posts updated flight information, with destinations and the number of seats tentatively available on each flight. The pages also include contact information for the terminals, and potential passengers can call the terminal and speak to an employee or listen to a recording containing information about upcoming flights.

Space A travel is also available from flights out of non-AMC terminals, such as most Marine Corps bases, including Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. However, because MCAS Cherry Point is not a major AMC hub, flights from this location are far less frequent, said terminal employee John Woleslagle. Woleslagle recommended passengers look for flights out of Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, or Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, instead.

For Marine Corps Base Quantico residents, the closest location from which they can access space A flights is the military passenger terminal at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Joel Samaroo, a transportation assistant at BWI, said the space A check-in counter is located in Terminal E, approximately 150 feet from the USO lounge. Military passengers leaving from BWI pay a tax of $17.50 per passenger for international flights and $4 per passenger for domestic flights, but they do not pay for a ticket or checked baggage. In fact, said Samaroo, like with all other space A flights, passengers are authorized two checked bags weighing up to 70 pounds each, as well as one small hand-carried suitcase and one small personal item, all free of charge. Once passengers are granted a seat, they are given boarding passes and proceed through the same Transportation Security Administration checkpoint that commercial passengers use, said Samaroo.

Though it may seem straightforward in theory — go to the airport, sign the roster, pick up your free ticket, board the plane — there are two primary differences, beyond the cost, between commercial travel and space A travel. The first is that flight information, in terms of destinations and number of seats available, is not given out more than 72 hours in advance of the actual departure. This can make planning difficult for people who want to schedule leave and make arrangements for lodging at a destination in advance. While it is possible to review a list of past flights at a given terminal and make predictions about what is going to be available, the number of seats changes depending on the military mission. BWI, for example, usually has daily flights to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, but the number of seats fluctuates daily.

The second difference is that return seats are not guaranteed. Passengers are authorized to sign up for a return flight immediately upon landing at their destination, but mission changes and higher-category passengers may prevent them from getting on a flight home at the desired time. This can force passengers to pay for a last-minute commercial ticket, which can be quite expensive.

Gunnery Sgt. Ulysses Colon, officer appointments chief with Reserve Continuation and Transition, has flown space A four times. He has flown from BWI to Germany, as well as between Okinawa and mainland Japan, and between Japan and the United States. His impression of space A travel is that it is relatively easy to manage if you are single or are only travelling with a spouse, but that it can be difficult for families because of the uncertainty and the discomfort of travelling in a military cargo plane. While the planes have commercial-style seats, the inside of the cabin can be noisy, and there is no food or beverage service, so passengers must bring their own provisions.

Andrea Hayes, a public health analyst with Behavioral Health Branch and former senior airman with the Air Force, has had both positive and negative experiences with space A travel. While she enjoyed free travel to overseas destinations, she was once stuck in a military terminal for 12 hours halfway through a trip because the plane experienced maintenance problems, and there was not another flight she could be transferred to. Her recommendation to potential space A travelers is that they should definitely bring extra cash with them and have a contingency plan in case their desired flight arrangements fall through.

Jennifer Anderson, a Marine spouse and administrative assistant in Lejeune Hall, said she has travelled space A with her husband and three children three times and experienced no problems at all. Anderson said they flew from Okinawa to Hawaii, which would have cost them approximately $2,500 each trip if they had flown on a commercial ticket. Because space A travel is free, Anderson said, she was willing to accept, and in fact expected, some level of inconvenience and longer waits at the airport, though she actually experienced little inconvenience.

Anderson said the terminal staff kept passengers informed of the status of the flight with regular announcements. When they landed at their destination, a customs agent came on the plane to assist people before they left the aircraft, so they did not have to wait in a long customs line in the terminal.

Passengers can find comprehensive information on space A travel at the AMC website http://www.amc.af.mil/amctravel.

— Writer: ebaker@quanticosentryonline.com