$2,000 Flight Evacuation Fee For Americans Escaping Kabul Triggers Outrage

The Biden State Department has scrapped an initial plan to bill US citizens desperately seeking to fly out of Kabul $2,000 or more for their evacuation flight home.

Harrowing scenes showed Americans in some cases literally standing on the other side of barbed wire barriers screaming for US soldiers guarding airport entrances to help them inside.

Word of the $2,000 price tag for the flight home first emerged on social media on Thursday and was later confirmed by the State Department as 'normative' practice, as indicated on its official.

"U.S. law requires that evacuation assistance to private U.S. citizens or third country nationals be provided 'on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable,'" a State Dept.

Following widespread outrage over the hefty fee, which presumably the US government would have collected later after it flew Americans out of harm's way, State Department spokesman Ned Price announced the US plans to drop the fee in this case.

According to The Hill, "The law requires that Americans or other foreign nationals agree to pay back the cost of an evacuation, which is typically comparable to the cost of a full fare economy flight, or comparable transportation to the designated destination."

It's now pretty much universally agreed upon that the evacuation was botched from the beginning, given the administration delayed and waited despite repeat warnings from military and intelligence officials that the process be started much, much earlier.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/2000-flight-evacuation-fee-americans-leaving-kabul-triggers-outrage