
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003081548
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

U.S., SOVIETS PLANNING FRIENDLIER SKIES

The United States and the Soviet Union plan sharp increases in air service between the two nations, ending cutbacks that began with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a State Department official said Wednesday.

The official said that under a tentative agreement reached in London last week, U.S. airlines would increase scheduled service to Moscow and Leningrad and gain new rights to serve six additional Soviet cities, including two in the Soviet Far East.

These cities include Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine; Riga, the capital of Latvia; Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia; Tbilisi, the capital of Soviet Georgia; and Magadan and Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East.

Confirming the tentative agreement, State Department spokeswoman Anita Stockman said Soviet airliners would be permitted to increase trans-Atlantic service to New York City and Washington and would gain new rights to serve Chicago and Miami with onward service to two undisclosed points in South America.

Soviet air service over the Pacific also would begin to Anchorage, Alaska, and to San Francisco with a mandatory stop in Anchorage, the department said.

Additionally, both nations would be allowed up to 100 charter flights a year over the Atlantic.

Positive consideration also would be given to additional charter flights between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Pacific, she said.

Airlines of both nations would also have the right to increase the number of weekly flights and to increase the number of airlines designated to serve the expanded routes.

Stockman said the agreement in principle was reached at a second round of negotiations held in London last week to consider expanding the Civil Air Transport Agreement between the two nations.

Then-President Jimmy Carter ordered the Soviet airline Aeroflot to stop its service to New York after Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan in 1979.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan ordered Aeroflot to terminate its service to Washington, citing Soviet repression in Poland. That halted all Soviet air service to the United States except for Aeroflot flights carrying diplomatic personnel and goods intended for Soviet embassies and consulates.

Aeroflot's offices in New York and Washington were ordered closed after the Soviets shot down a Korean passenger liner over the Soviet Union in 1983.

Commercial flights between the two nations were resumed in April 1986 with regularly scheduled Aeroflot flights landing here and Pan American Airways flights landing in Moscow.

by CNB