Space-A Eligibility Checker
The military's free flight system uses a 6-category priority system. Find your category, learn your sign-up window, and see which terminals to target.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is eligible for Space-A travel?
Space-A is limited to specific categories: active duty on leave or PTDY, Reserve/Guard members on active-duty orders, retirees drawing retired pay, veterans with a 100% Permanent & Total (P&T) VA disability rating, command-sponsored dependents, DoD civilian employees under certain authorizations, and Medal of Honor recipients. Standard separated veterans without a qualifying retirement or 100% P&T rating do not qualify. Select your exact status in the checker above to see your category.
What are the Space-A priority categories?
There are six, and higher categories always clear before lower ones. Category I is emergency leave (highest priority). Category II is Environmental/Morale Leave (EML) from designated remote or isolated duty stations. Category III is ordinary leave — which includes terminal leave, Reserve/Guard members on active-duty orders, house-hunting permissive TDY, and Medal of Honor recipients. Category IV is command-sponsored dependents traveling without their sponsor. Category V covers non-house-hunting permissive TDY, students, and dependents of deployed members. Category VI — the lowest priority — covers retirees, retired reservists, 100% P&T disabled veterans, and DoD civilians. Within each category you are ranked by your sign-up date and time.
Can retirees fly Space-A?
Yes. A retiree drawing or entitled to retired pay flies in Category VI — the lowest of the six priority tiers — and the benefit does not expire: sign up at any AMC terminal, anytime, as long as your retiree ID card is valid. Because retirees are the largest group competing for Space-A seats and everyone in Categories I–V boards ahead of them, availability comes down to flexibility and your sign-up timestamp. Retirees who plan around open routes (Ramstein-to-CONUS runs multiple times a week) still use it reliably, and unlike 100% P&T veterans, retirees can fly worldwide.
Can my dependents fly Space-A without me?
Only in limited cases. A command-sponsored dependent can travel unaccompanied in Category IV, but they must carry the sponsor's written authorization plus their dependent ID, and are generally required to be 18 or older (15–17 may be allowed with command authorization at some terminals). Cat IV sits below Cat III, so unaccompanied dependents get bumped ahead of flying often — have a commercial fallback for anything time-sensitive.
How does the Space-A sign-up and roll-call work?
You register at a terminal with a date-time stamp, then compete only against travelers in your own category, ranked by that sign-up timestamp — earlier sign-ups roll first. Your timestamp never resets, so sign up as early as your status allows; separating members, for example, can register up to 60 days before their ETS/retirement date and lock that date in before terminal leave even starts. Most AMC terminals accept email registration, so you can hold a spot at several terminals at once.