Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to activate, requesting 18 aircraft from the U.S. airlines to help in the evacuation of Afghans and Americans.

The airlines impacted include American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air. Hawaiian Airlines is requested to provide two aircraft and United Airlines is requested to provide four.

Those aircraft will not go into Kabul. Military aircraft will continue to airlift passengers out of Kabul, the commercial airlines will take the second leg, picking up passengers from staging bases in the Middle East and flying them to the U.S. or other temporary housing locations, such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Late Friday night, U.S. Transportation Command issued a warning order to commercial carriers that they might be activated to help through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to put those carriers under order to assist with the airlift.