air space is under civil authority
air space is divided up with various users, primarily military
the civil will ask the military to give up their "reserved" airspace in time
of need
need being.. weather causing routing changes into "reserved military"
airspace

it happens all the time.. you just don't hear about it, until the Prez makes
a "political statement", to show the ignorant public that he is doing
something about their travel woes..
BT

"Charles Packer" wrote in message
...
Matthew L. Wald, who has covered aviation
for the NY Times for years and years,
in today's Times wrote "Normally, the FAA asks
the Pentagon for use of offshore airspace
on a day-by-day or hour-by-hour basis."
What was he smoking?

I believe it's the other way around, that
by law, US airspace is entirely under
civilian control. Formally, it's the
DOD that asks the FAA for airspace,
(which is usually granted). Can somebody
in this newsgroup confirm this? All I
know is that a few years ago I was
writing software for the miniature
bureaucracy within the FAA whose
purpose is to schedule military use
of airspace.

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org