During Daddy Bush's "conflict" to rescue the oil in Kuwait, HP could....and did ferry troops on their 747s. Those troops also pretty much wrecked the hell out of HPs big birds. HP had not had their 747s very long, and had just begun their service to HNL and Nagoya...and it was a very nice service and great on-board amenities but, it was never any secret that Daddy Bush's little war in the cities of oil caused HP to fall into bankruptcy after it was over, they simply couldn't pay for the aircraft leases on the peanuts that uncle sam was paying them to ferry the 17 and 18 year old snot nosed brats with rifles that ripped their jets up so bad they had to be taken out of service for interior repairs before being put back on routes again - which, by then, had long been abandoned by the customer base that they had started to build. And no, uncle sam did not pay any of the airlines for any of their damages, thank you CRAF, you get 88 bucks a head and fuel at cost... and that's it.
I understand AA had some damaged aircraft after that conflict also, but HP being my carrier of choice at the time, I paid more attention to them. I'm sure someone out there remembers Desert Storm and what it did to AA.
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As a crew member I have shuttled those"snot nosed brats" many times accross the atlantic..On CRAF,MAC and CAM flights, and I will have to say they were well behaved and respected us as crew and our aircraft. I do not know where you get your information WNP..but you could not be further from the truth..AW woes and those old delapitated 747s were in a nose dive far before our troops set foot on them headed for the mid east. It was a yeild mgmt prob along with other bad business manuvers..not foot prints on the bulkheads...I would take a plane full of military personal over any "business" pax anyday...these "kids" are model pax and could teach joe business a thing or two about behavior...
..and as for AAs equipment...the cabins returned to the line in the same condition the left??