INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A military plane carrying enough specialty infant formula for more than half a million baby bottles arrived Sunday in Indianapolis, the first of several flights expected from Europe aimed at relieving a shortage that has sent parents scrambling to find enough to feed their children.

President Joe Biden authorized the use of Air Force planes for the effort, dubbed “Operation Fly Formula,” because no commercial flights were available.

The formula weighed 78,000 pounds, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden flew from South Korea to Japan.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Indianapolis to greet the arrival of the first shipment.

The flights are intended to provide “some incremental relief in the coming days” as the government works on a more lasting response to the shortage, Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday.

Deese told CNN’s “State of the Union” that Sunday’s flight brought 15% of the specialty medical grade formula needed in the U.S., and because of various actions by the government, people should see “more formula in stores starting as early as this week.”

Longer term, he said, the U.S. needs more formula providers “so that no individual company has this much control over supply chains.”

The Biden administration has struggled to address the nationwide shortage of formula, particularly hypoallergenic varieties. The crisis follows the closure of the nation's largest domestic manufacturing plant in Michigan in February due to safety issues.

The White House has said 132 pallets of Nestle Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formula was to leave Ramstein Air Base in Germany for the U.S. Another 114 pallets of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA formula were expected to arrive in the coming days. Altogether, about 1.5 million 8-ounce bottles of the three formulas, which are hypoallergenic for children with cow’s milk protein allergies, are expected to arrive this week.

Indianapolis was chosen because it is a Nestle distribution hub. The formula will be offloaded into FedEx semitractor-trailers and taken to a Nestle distribution center about a mile away where the company will do a standard quality control check before distributing the supplies to hospitals, pharmacies and doctor’s offices, according to an administration official on site.

Nestle said that over the past few months it has worked “around the clock” to address the formula shortage and help meet demand.

“We have significantly increased the amount of our formulas available to consumers by ramping up production and accelerating general product availability to retailers and online, as well as through hospitals and home health care for those most vulnerable,” the company said in a release.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act to increase baby formula manufacturing to ease a nationwide shortage caused by the closure of a key plant in Michigan.

Biden is requiring suppliers to direct ingredients to baby formula manufacturers before any other companies who may have placed orders for those same goods. It wasn’t immediately clear which major suppliers are subject to the order.

The Defense Production Act gives the president broad authority to require companies to prioritize the manufacture and allocation of goods in response to a crisis. The law was passed in 1950 during the Korean War.

Biden has also directed the Health and Human Services Department and Department of Agriculture to use aircraft from the Defense Department to pick up infant formula from overseas that meets U.S. health and safety standards.

Parents across the nation have struggled to find formula for their infants since Abbott Nutrition shuttered its plant in Sturgis, Michigan due to bacterial contamination. Abbott issued a recall in February of powdered formula brands made at the plant after four infants who consumed products made there fell ill with bacterial infections, two of whom died.

The Justice Department, in a complaint filed Monday, said Abbott had introduced adulterated baby formula into the consumer market. Abbott maintains that there’s “no conclusive evidence” that its formula caused the infants to fall ill and die.

Abbott reached an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to reopen the plant under conditions subject to enforcement by a federal court. Those conditions include hiring independent experts to ensure that the plant meets U.S. food safety standards.

Abbott said it would take about two weeks to reopen the Michigan facility, subject to FDA approval, and up to eight weeks for products to arrive in stores across the country.

The U.S. produces 98% of the baby formula American parents buy. Four manufacturers – Abbott, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Nestle USA and Perrigo – dominate the market. When one plant goes offline, the supply chain is easily disrupted.

In 2019, SNAP households included 22,000 active duty service members, 213,000 members of the National Guard or reservists, and 1.1 million veterans.