TRANSCOM, located at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is a unified combatant command that provides air, land, and sea transportation for DOD, both in peacetime and wartime. AMC, one of TRANSCOM’s three component commands, provides strategic airlift, among other services— such as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet through which contracted commercial aircraft support DOD airlift requirements in emergencies when the need for airlift exceeds the capability of military aircraft—for deploying, sustaining, and redeploying U.S. forces worldwide. Strategic airlift moves cargo and passengers between the continental United States and overseas theaters or between overseas theaters. AMC operates military aircraft that constitute the U.S. strategic airlift fleet, including the C-5, C-17, and C-141 aircraft (app. II describes each aircraft). In addition, AMC can use aerial refueling aircraft, such as the KC-10 and KC-135, for transporting cargo. Although the C-130 is primarily used for intratheater airlift missions, AMC sometimes uses it in a strategic airlift role to transport cargo from the United States to Iraq and Afghanistan, especially if the aircraft is being moved into the theater and assigned to the United States Central Command. AMC’s Tanker Airlift Control Center plans, schedules, and tracks tanker and airlift worldwide. The Fusion Cell, a division within AMC’s Tanker Airlift Control Center, was created following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to provide senior decision makers with information about the movement of air mobility assets, especially for those missions associated with contingency operations. The Fusion Cell is charged with collecting and analyzing cargo and passenger data from completed missions using TRANSCOM- and AMC-owned and controlled databases, such as the Global Transportation Network, GATES, and the Global Decision Support System, and ensuring data quality. TRANSCOM uses the combatant commander’s delivery date at the final destination as well as information about the number and type of troops and cargo—the requirement—needed to accomplish a specific mission to determine the appropriate type of transportation needed to meet that date, develop feasible transportation schedules for deploying forces, assign ports of embarkation, and determine the best mode of transportation. AMC uses 15 short tons or 100 passengers as the minimum requirement for strategic airlift and may combine cargo loads to meet this requirement. However, AMC is required to provide airlift whenever cargo and passengers are approved for movement even if minimum requirements for using strategic airlift are not met or the requirement will not use an aircraft’s available capacity as efficiently as possible if this is the only way to accomplish the mission. If airlift is required, TRANSCOM tasks AMC with assigning and scheduling airlift. TRANSCOM reserves the use of airlift for (1) short notice and emergency requirements, (2) intelligence-related or sensitive cargo, and (3) when operational security considerations preclude the use of sealift. AMC assigns aircraft to move cargo and passengers based on (1) mission urgency and sensitivity, (2) cargo and passenger characteristics, and (3) other special factors. Currently, DOD transports the majority of cargo by sealift, as shown in figure 1. AMC officials use the average historical payload transported on each type of aircraft (see table 1), known as payload planning factors, to develop broad estimates of the types and number of aircraft initially needed to meet mission requirements. The payload planning factors are generally less than the maximum payload capacity, including the weight of unit personnel, equipment, and material that an aircraft can carry, known as the allowable cabin load. Because AMC does not systematically collect and analyze operational factors that impact payloads on individual missions, DOD does not know how often it met its secondary goal to use aircraft capacity as efficiently as possible. Historical mission planning files have limitations that prevent DOD officials from using the files to determine whether AMC used aircraft efficiently. In addition, data on operational factors captured in the GATES database are not useful because codes that could provide AMC officials with information about why aircraft flew with the payloads they did are neither well-defined nor comprehensive, and the accuracy and reliability of the data cannot be determined. In the absence of data about operational factors that impact payloads on individual missions, we calculated the average payloads for each type of strategic aircraft and compared these to the payload planning factors. Our analysis of AMC data showed that more than 86 percent of these missions flew with payloads that were lighter than established payload planning factors, and some of these did not meet the minimum requirement of 15 short tons or 100 passengers needed to qualify for use of strategic airlift. However, because AMC lacks data to determine how operational factors impact payloads, we are not able to determine whether these payloads indicate efficient use of an aircraft’s capacity. Historical mission planning files identify mission data and operational factors that may impact aircraft payloads, but we found limitations with using these files to determine whether AMC used an aircraft’s capacity as efficiently as possible. We reviewed 25 historical mission planning files for OEF and OIF to gain an understanding of how operational factors could impact payloads. We found these files were not retained in a format that facilitates manipulation of data for analysis to determine whether an aircraft’s capacity was used efficiently, and the files were not always complete or accurate. Although the historical mission planning files contain some information that could help identify operational factors that impacted aircraft payloads, the data are not easy to manipulate for analysis because the historical mission planning files are paper based. Currently, AMC stores the files in binders and boxes categorized by the operation, such as OEF, and the month and year of the flight. Officials told us that this organization system makes it difficult to access data for specific missions. We also found that some of the files we reviewed were incomplete or inaccurate. For instance, 3 of the 25 mission files we reviewed were missing load plans that AMC officials use to identify appropriate aircraft with which to transport cargo and passengers. According to a command official, time constraints, among other factors, can impact whether load plans were sent to AMC. An official told us that units sometimes make changes to the load plans and do not inform AMC, which could cause aircraft to be underutilized if the allowable cabin load of the available and scheduled aircraft is too large for the size and weight of the requirement to be moved. AMC officials did not provide data on the frequency with which units make such changes. However, because of concerns about the accuracy of load plans, especially from units that do not deploy frequently, AMC officials told us that they always call units before scheduling aircraft to request load plans and confirm the accuracy of validated Time Phased Force and Deployment Data that identify the forces, sequence, and priority of unit deployments; the locations of ports of debarkation for a specific unit; and the number of pieces of cargo, cargo dimensions, and numbers and weights of passengers. Despite these limitations, the mission planning files are the only combined source of mission information that includes load plans, diplomatic clearances, and air refueling requests and shows what was planned to be transported on an aircraft used for OEF and OIF. An AMC official told us that the historical mission planning files capture operational data that could be valuable for helping DOD understand the implications of moving to a lighter and faster force and projecting airlift assets needed to transport this force. Operational data captured in one of AMC’s databases, GATES,—the “system of record” database that provides AMC with automated capability to process and track cargo and passenger airlift data and facilitates payment for services—is also not useful for assessing whether AMC used an aircraft’s capacity as efficiently as possible. When GATES was automated in 2000, command officials retained a data field called “Load Message Utilization” that consists of 13 codes that could provide AMC officials with information about why an aircraft flew with the payloads it did. AMC requires GATES users to manually enter a primary and, if relevant, a secondary code from the 13 codes presented in table 2 before transmitting mission data to AMC, although the command does not review or use this information for analysis. Although command officials could use some information captured in the “Load Message Utilization” data field to understand why aircraft flew with specific payloads, codes in this data field are neither well defined nor comprehensive, and the accuracy and reliability of the data are not known. There may be similar data fields in other transportation information systems such as the Global Transportation Network and Global Decision Support System that could be used to capture operational data. However, we are unaware of similar fields in these databases that could be modified for this use. According to AMC officials, some of the codes are not well defined and are inconsistently interpreted and applied by users. For example, the “V” code indicates that the aircraft is considered fully utilized only if the payload is 95 to 100 percent of the allowable cabin load. However, as we previously reported, an aircraft may be fully utilized with lighter payloads if the maximum volume of cargo that will fit into an aircraft is reached before the maximum cargo weight is reached. AMC officials told us that most airlifted cargo loads reach maximum volume before reaching maximum weight. Additionally, an AMC official who reviewed the “Load Message Utilization” codes believes that users may have inappropriately applied the codes. We were not able to determine the extent to which users may have done this because we could not determine the reliability of data. We also found that the codes are not as comprehensive as they could be. For example, there are no codes to indicate that an aircraft was fully utilized because the maximum volume of cargo that could fit into the aircraft was reached before the maximum cargo weight was reached.