How to pronounce “airlift”(noun) in English

He suggests that somehow his own father got to the United States, and received an American education, thanks to the Kennedys and tries to draw a line between the Kennedy fundingof an airlift of Kenyan scholars and students. Not quite true. The Kennedys kicked in money after Obama had gotten to the United States. But okay. But he tries to say to the blackcommunity, "It is true that my father is African, and is not in the normal or normative line