About 300 paratroops will be able to rest on these specially designed wooden benches in the Personnel Alert Holding Area unveiled Monday at Aviano Air Base, Italy. (Kent Harris / Stars and Stripes)
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — The three C-17 Globemasters sitting on the south ramp Monday were there just by coincidence.
In the absence of hundreds of Army airborne soldiers, the large military transport planes helped serve as a reminder of why a few dozen people were gathered to celebrate the opening of the Personnel Alert Holding Area.
“It’s a departure lounge for the airborne people,” said Martin Fano, summing up the purpose of the $10 million facility on the flight line that’s one of the largest buildings on base. “And for us, a lot of other things will be going on here.”
Fano is operations officer for the U.S. Army Garrison-Vicenza’s Arrival/Departure Airfield Control Group. He’s the point man when Vicenza’s airborne soldiers come to Aviano to train or launch missions.
Most of those soldiers are in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and currently deployed to Afghanistan.
“I can’t wait for the soldiers to get back and go through this,” said Col. Virgil Williams, the garrison commander in Vicenza. “This is a big day for SETAF (Southern European Task Force), the Vicenza military community and anyone who will be deploying troops from Italy.”
Airborne troops have been flying out of Aviano for years. But they’ve had to use temporary shelters or nothing at all as they gathered their equipment and waited for transport.
The new PAHA, built in about 18 months by Italian contractor Impressa Pizzarotti, is just shy of 5,000 square meters of space. Much of that area is devoted to two large waiting areas separated by bathrooms, showers and storage rooms.
Fano said a series of specially made benches set up in one of the two waiting rooms can seat 300 troops wearing all their gear. The building is designed for up to 1,000 troops to use at one time. They’ll be able to exit the PAHA right onto the south ramp to board their planes.
There are also waiting rooms designed for aircrews and a deploying unit’s headquarters. Upstairs, there are more offices and a briefing room that can seat about 100 people.
Fano said the PAHA is modeled after a facility at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., used by soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.
“Seeing as here we don’t have the space they have at Fort Bragg (N.C.), we have to pack in as much as we can,” he said.
The other waiting room is largely vacant. Brig. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of the 31st Fighter Wing, said it’s likely the Air Force will be using that space occasionally as a large gathering place for special events. Hangar 1, currently used for that purpose, will be undergoing renovations soon.
The Air Force also will likely use the new building for some of its deployments, but Americans won’t be the only ones in the facility. Col. Roberto Sardo, Italian base commander at Aviano, said that Italian airborne troops who frequently jump with their American colleagues at the nearby Juliet drop zone also will use the new building. In fact, it’s likely the facility will be used for training purposes much more frequently than it will be for deployments.
Training jumps will launch from the site several times before soldiers from the 173rd return to Italy in August and turn in weapons and equipment there before returning to Vicenza.
About 300 paratroops will be able to rest on these specially designed wooden benches in the Personnel Alert Holding Area unveiled Monday at Aviano Air Base, Italy. (Kent Harris / Stars and Stripes)
An upstairs office in the new Personnel Alert Holding Area has a good view of the south ramp on base, including one of three C-17s that were parked on the expanse Monday. (Kent Harris / Stars and Stripes)
