Bon voyage, thanks to TRIPS

Travel system handles international bookings

Employees using Boeing Travel's newest offering—international bookings via the online TRIPS system—are peppering agents with "merci," "danke" and similar praise.

"We appreciate their thanks, but the employees are the ones who deserve the honor," said Corrine Howells, TRIPS system manager. Howells said employees making international bookings on TRIPS are saving the company, on average, 25 percent compared to using traditional methods.

"With the price of international travel being substantially higher than for jaunts within the United States, the savings for Boeing is adding up," Howells said.

Fares for international bookings are complicated, so TRIPS can be used only for reservations to a single international destination. (For travel within the United States, Canada and Mexico, TRIPS can be used for treks covering up to seven locations.) Departures are limited to six U.S. gateways: Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis and Seattle-Tacoma. The city pairs served are shown on http://travel.web.boeing.com, Boeing Travel's site on the Boeing Web, and in the TRIPS system. Boeing Travel expects to quickly expand the departure and destinations list to meet user requests.

Boeing Travel forecasts that half of international reservations are easy enough to make using TRIPS. During initial offering of the upgrade, Boeing Travel predicted that about 10 percent of those would be made by employees directly. In the second month, that goal was exceeded by an additional 10 percent.

Agents keep an eye on bookings, and travel arrangers "are making good travel choices," Howells said. "They're following the booking tips, like not making a hotel reservation for a day lost crossing the international dateline or reserving the standard-issue manual-transmission car before knowing their traveler can drive it."

Boeing Travel Management Company manages all business travel for Boeing in addition to serving other corporate clients and leisure travelers. It is the 19th-largest U.S. travel agency.