Air Force Aircraft

Although the Pentagon has been interested in modernizing its forces with new weapons and equipment, for various reasons, these efforts have been stymied and the funds that the Defense Department planned to use for forces modernization have instead been spent on current operations. GAO has issued several reports in recent years examining the feasibility of reducing operating costs. This report assesses the cost-effectiveness of organizing the Air Force's airlift and refueling force into fewer, larger-sized squadrons and wings. GAO (1) evaluates the effect that reorganization may have on mission accomplishment, (2) determines whether costs could be reduced through redistributing aircraft among fewer wings, and (3) presents five possible options for redistributing C-130 and KC-135 aircraft among fewer wings to lower operating costs.

GAO noted that: (1) the Air Force could reduce costs and meet peacetime and wartime commitments if it reorganized its C-130 and KC-135 aircraft into larger-sized squadrons and wings at fewer locations; (2) these savings would primarily result from fewer people being needed to operate these aircraft; (3) for the reorganization options GAO developed, up to $209 million dollars could be saved annually; (4) creating larger-sized squadrons and wings would still allow the Air Force to accomplish its peacetime and wartime missions with the existing number of aircraft; (5) in peacetime deployments, reserve component C-130 and KC-135 personnel do not participate as part of entire squadrons or wings but rather as individual volunteers; (6) thus, creating larger-sized squadrons and wings should not compromise these missions; (7) for wartime deployments, requirements for C-130 and KC-135 aircraft are typically stated by the number of aircraft rather than by squadrons or wings; (8) moreover, war plans where existing flying squadrons are assigned can be changed to accomodate larger-sized squadrons; (9) specific reserve component wings are not usually assigned in existing war plans; (10) thus, the impact of reducing them would be minimal; (11) redistributing the reserve component's C-130 and KC-135 existing aircraft into fewer, larger-sized squadrons and wings would reduce operating costs; (12) for example, redistributing 16 C-130 aircraft from two 8-aircraft wings to one 16-aircraft wing would save about $11 million annually, primarily from personnel savings; (13) GAO developed five options to illustrate the kind of savings that can be achieved by creating larger-sized squadrons; (14) these savings range from about $51 million to $209 million annually; and (15) sufficient personnel could be recruited and most locations' facilities could be inexpensively expanded to accomodate the unit sizes in GAO's options.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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