The U.S. military is considering “creative ways” to get Americans and others into the Kabul airport for evacuation from Afghanistan amid “acute” security threats, Biden administration officials said, and the Pentagon on Sunday ordered six U.S. commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan, AP reported.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told ABC’s “This Week” that as Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending the evacuation operation approaches, he will recommend whether to give it more time. Tens of thousands of Americans and others have yet to flown out of the country.

“We’re gonna try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” Austin said in the interview. “And we’ve got -- we continue to look at different ways to—in creative ways—to reach out and contact American citizens and help them get into the airfield.” 

Austin noted that the U.S. military on Thursday had used helicopters to move 169 Americans into the airport from the grounds of a nearby hotel in the capital.