Reengineering the Air Travel Process

Every year, Department of Defense DOD travelers make thousands of trips that include air transportation. The vast majority of travelers use commercial air for their travel, even when there may be military air options available at greatly reduced cost to the taxpayer. The current process for arranging passenger travel does not allow for or encourage the use of these organic options because the visibility over them does not exist at the base Traffic Management Officers level. This paper will recommend a reengineering effort that will provide travelers with a consolidated list of all travel options, with the ultimate aim of reducing travel costs. The reengineering will be modeled after the process currently used at the Joint Movement Control Group US Transportation Command, and will rely upon the Global Transportation Network as its centerpiece. The paper will explore the feasibility and costs associated with this concept. It will further explore and suggest strategies for encouraging commanders to actively support the program. The goal of the paper is to present a workable process that can be implemented with minimum costs and complication at the base level Traffic Management Office. This process will help to assure maximum use of already-existing organic airlift, and thereby reduce taxpayer costs.