GSA air travel program to save agencies $2.44B for FY18

A General Services Administration air travel contracts award will save the government approximately $2.44 billion for Fiscal Year 2018.

Leveraging the government’s buying power through a strategically sourced program, the government pre-negotiates prices with eight major U.S. carriers for federal government official travel to/from 9,207 markets and establishes a firm-fixed-price offering a 53-percent discount on commercial fares.

“GSA’s ‘Best-in-Class’ City Pair Program is a valuable tool to help us accomplish our goal of helping federal agencies save valuable taxpayer dollars,” Alan Thomas, GSA’s federal acquisition service commissioner, said in a press release. 

When considering airlines for the award, the government looked at a variety of items, including the availability of non-stop services, total flight numbers, flight availability, the program performance and average time elapsed during flight. This data-driven analytical approach allowed GSA to save money while offering government officials the maximum amount of flexibility available to book their travels. These benefits include the elimination of fees for cancellations and flight changes, which could be out of the government employee’s hands.

These contractual rates will go into effect on Oct. 1, 2017.