Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110013-9.pdf/27

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110013-9

Western Europe, the Middle East, North and West Africa, the Western Hemisphere, and South and Southeast Asia, as well as the U.S.S.R. and all the Communist Eastern European countries except Albania. Some of these services, notably the flights to Montreal and New York, are operated more for prestige purposes than economic gain. Other international services, including those to Africa and Southeast Asia, are designed to establish and strengthen economic ties with developing areas and new nations. In recent years, however, air traffic potential and profitability have become the criteria for establishing new routes, thus causing some low-volume routes to be cancelled. Although CSA's international services are used primarily by government, diplomatic, and technical personnel traveling to foreign countries, tourist travel is claiming an increasingly greater proportion of the passenger traffic. Increased summer services to Kiev, Leningrad, and resort areas in Yugoslavia and Romania have become very profitable in recent years. In addition to these regularly scheduled services, CSA charter flights annually transport thousands of tourists to Yugoslavia and the Black Sea resorts.

Domestic air services are highly developed; about 175 flights depart weekly from Prague to 10 other points throughout the country. Bratislava and Brno receive much of this traffic, being served each week by about 50 and 25 flights, respectively. Cargo and officials traveling on government business comprise most of the weekday traffic, but passenger loads increase considerably on weekends. Summer passenger traffic is much heavier than winter, reflecting internal tourist travel to the various recreation areas of the country.

The CSA fleet is estimated to include 45 major transport aircraft: 22 CRATE (Avia-14), 7 COOT (Il-18), 4 CAMEL (Tu-104), 2 COOKPOT (Tu-124), 6 CRUSTY (Tu-134) and 4 CLASSIC (Il-62) aircraft (Figure 12). In the future, CSA is considering the purchase of CARELESS (Tu-154) aircraft to replace its aging CAMEL and COOT units. CSA's twin-engine piston CRATE aircraft are employed exclusively on domestic routes. Turboprop COOT units are now used only on domestic routes and as back-up aircraft for short-range international flights. COOKPOT twinjets are no longer used on scheduled routes and may soon be retired from service. The four-engine CLASSIC jetliners see service primarily on long-range international flights to Southeast Asia and the Western Hemisphere, and twinjet CAMEL and CRUSTY aircraft are the workhorses of CSA's short- and medium-range international routes. All of CSA's major transport aircraft are of Soviet manufacture, except for the CRATE, which is the Czech-built version of the Soviet Il-14.

CSA's scheduled domestic services are supplemented by air-taxi transportation and charter services provided by the Bratislava-based enterprise, Slov-Air. A fleet of 6 L-410 and about 30 L-200 (Morava) aircraft are used for this purpose. The 17-passenger L-410 aircraft have also performed scheduled services to Bratislava and other points in Slovakia. It is, however, the aim of the government to reserve all scheduled services for CSA and employ Slov-Air aircraft only on charter, air taxi, and general aviation missions. The Czech-built four-passenger L-200's provide air taxi service to over 70 airfields in all areas of the country. In addition to transporting passengers to the country's smaller airfields, they are also used for emergency medical missions, the transport of mail, and for sightseeing excursions.

Agricultural services are also performed by Slov-Air, using a fleet of approximately 125 light aircraft and helicopters. The Czech-Z-37 (Cmelak), a versatile single-engine plane specifically designed for agricultural work, is the primary aircraft of the fleet. Also included are a few Soviet COLT (An-2) biplanes and Soviet HARE (Mi-1) helicopters. Throughout the country Slov-Air has about 65 stations, from which planes are contracted out to local and central

FIGURE 12. CSA's newest transport, the Soviet IL-62 (U/OU)

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110013-9