air america

Apparently, the US has found a way to bypass the new EU airport emissions tax being levied on all incoming and departing flights into Europe. One exemption is that the originating location imposes a reciprocal environmental regime to offset some of the pollution from air travel, but instead, the government has contracted an airline, called Patriot Express, for all official military travel in Europe, no longer relying on commercial airliners to transport soldiers.  This service will fly one route only, between Baltimore-Washington International and not to Frankfurt (the traditional hub) but rather to Ramstein Airbase, which is of course does not fall under EU environmental regulation. This slapdash and ostensibly retaliatory work-around is supposed to commence as soon as February.