FEATURES

2011 NDTA Forum & Expo Preview

Passenger Initiatives & You

Your Next Flight Could Be Free

Have you ever longed to travel to exotic places? To walk around the Parthenon in Athens, to view Paris from the Eiffel Tower, to shop at the Rostro (Street Market) in Madrid, or to enjoy a stein of beer during Oktoberfest in the Rheine Land of Germany? Many have been able to enjoy such adventures using free flights on Air Mobility Command (AMC) aircraft. AMC transports more than 2.8 million passengers each year. If you are active duty military or a retired military member, you and your dependants are eligible to travel on AMC airplanes.

There are two major categories of travelers on AMC missions: the Space-Required (official travel) and the Space-Available 1 (Space-A) traveler. The Space-A program was designed as a privilege for military members. In addition, retired military members are also extended the same privilege, as a way to show the gratitude of a grateful nation for their military service. Dependent family members are also generally authorized to accompany their sponsor on DOD missions where space is available. The AMC staff is striving hard to significantly improve your travel experience through several new Passenger Service Initiatives. If we can see it, touch it, and experience it, we are trying to make it better. Much like your experience when traveling through civilian airports, no two military passenger terminals look the same. You may encounter some commonalties: waiting areas, check-in counters, customer service agents, baggage checkpoints, and arrival/departure gates. However, AMC terminals often provide services not normally found at civilian airports, such as dedicated family lounges. Some AMC family lounges are very nice facilities and others are very basic. AMC’s goal is to upgrade all family lounges to the “showcase” standard.

In most of our terminals, there is a dedicated family lounge. In AMC, we are establishing standardized guidelines to define the interior design and amenities for these family lounges. These guidelines provide standards for safety, cleanliness, style, and military requirements. There will be changing stations and cribs for infant care, play areas for toddlers, and televisions and other media for older children and adults, all combined in an attractive and restful environment that will ease the burden for our travelers.

Once the guidelines are complete, we will implement them throughout all AMC passenger terminals. It is our goal to make sure that wait areas are well maintained and tailored to meet your military and family needs. Our larger terminals will provide you greater amenities, such as more dining choices, bigger waiting areas, and the improved family rooms. Our goal is that you and your families will always find a warm and inviting area in which to relax and unwind during your travel. However, not every location that processes passengers has a passenger terminal or family room (due to space or funding restrictions). Based on mission requirements, some Space-A opportunities are occasional and sporadic at low volume airfields, and therefore, passenger amenities are very limited.

Changes in technology are also making your travel with AMC easier. A recent passenger service improvement is the ad

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dition of credit card reader machines. Prior to this addition, all payments for terminal costs (excess baggage, head taxes for certain destinations and missions, federal inspection fees, and any meal options that may be available) were cash or personal check. These new credit card machines are now located with the Passenger Service Agent (PSA) at the check-in counter. In order to take advantage of the online revolution, AMC is working to develop an interactive web application to help travelers plan, sign up, and make critical decisions about their journey. Once complete, this web application will allow you to see available flights from the comforts of your home computer/smart phone and allow you to pay for additional travel expenses such as excess or overweight baggage, pet movement, and meals. In addition, the web app will show your current Space-A selection standing on a given mission, identified by travel category. Our goal is to make this app available on any device with internet access. This capability will solve the problem of a family with small children having to check out of billeting at one o’clock in the morning, drag their bags to the Pax terminal to make a Space-A roll call, only to find out there are no seats available. Our intent is to provide you with a capability that is similar to the civilian counterparts of online ticket purchase but tailored specifically to the unique aspects of the DOD traveler.

Passing accurate information to our passengers is the primary goal for our PSAs. Our terminals have flight monitors that display upcoming flight information. These monitors are updated by our computer system, which our PSAs use to check-in, manifest, and provide you flight information. We want to provide our passengers the most accurate flight information possible. Currently, our displays provide passenger information on mission departures and arrivals. Similar to what is shown at a civilian airport, you will be able to see what flights are arriving and departing for the next three days. Recent internet security changes have allowed terminals to display some of this information via websites, and we are working to get this out for you to see. We are researching new initiatives every day to increase information flow to our travelers.

All our initiatives are not just in the terminal. Within the last year, we brought the AMC Travel Webpage online. Although

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there are various websites set up by seasoned travelers that provide information on the Space-A process, the official AMC webpage is a commercially accessible site with a wealth of accurate information available for all AMC travelers. We have multiple links to passenger terminals throughout AMC. The site contains information on flying Space-A and passenger flight programs (ie, Command and Non-Command Sponsored Travel, Deployed Dependent Program, Unaccompanied Dependent Travel Policy, and the Injured Soldier’s Family Member Travel Program). There is also a variety of downloadable content on the site, from passenger brochures for the Patriot Express and Pet Travel policies to a Space-A Handbook designed to be a complete reference point for you. Finally, we have a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page designed to answer typical Space-A travel questions.

In order to reduce lines and waiting times, we held two Improvement Events with the goal of reducing wait times and the number of times your documentation gets checked. The first event, in October 2010, dealt with the Passenger Processing rules. We looked at the entire passenger handling process from the time travelers walk into the terminal until the time they depart via air. Through standardizing work processes, the team reduced the number of document checks from six to two. We also streamlined some additional processes for our service agents, making it easier and quicker to process passengers. The second event, also in October 2010, was a Seat Release Review. The intent of the event was to identify ways to provide more seats for AMC travelers. The team identified the need for earlier seat release notification to the passenger terminal and established a deadline for our control center to pass available seat information. We have now standardized this time at five hours prior to aircraft departure. We standardized seat release guidance to ensure that all passenger terminals provide the maximum number of seats for travelers as early as possible. This policy guidance is still relatively new, but all the passenger agents are working hard with all the “players” involved (flight crew, command and control, maintenance, Tanker Airlift Control Center, etc.) to provide accurate and timely seat release information for our traveler.

In addition to the two improvement events that we will revisit this summer, we standardized duty passenger show time at no later than two hours and twenty minutes prior to aircraft departure for the majority of our terminals. Space-A roll call will also start at the same time. This new policy should help prevent confusion at our terminals and the uncertainty of Space-A travelers actually getting a seat.

As an AMC traveler, you will meet many people along your journey. Among the first people you will meet are our Passenger Ser

tomer, and ensuring your positive travel experience.

We sincerely hope our initiatives will significantly improve your travel experience. You will have a more standardized experience and be able to count on certain amenities at most of our terminals. Waiting lines will be shorter. Making decisions on whether to go to the terminal for a chance at a Space-A seat will be easier. More and more information will be

vice Agents. We know a good experience with them will set the tone of your journey. Passenger satisfaction begins and ends with the PSAs. A smile goes along way, but we know the correct answer to your question goes a lot further. Because PSAs are so critical to your travel experience, one of our most important initiatives is ensuring that our PSA training plan is concise and all inclusive. We are currently revitalizing our PSA training plan to ensure that our customers feel the love. Through the use of a new command checklist, our PSAs will make sure all our passengers get high quality service at every AMC terminal every time.

New Train the Trainer Customer Service classes are being taught at four decentralized training hubs, two in the US, one in the Pacific, and one in Europe. Improving on the existing program, we have incorporated new ideas (a new customer service video from the civilian sector, for example) as well as updated course material. These new trainers will be responsible for going back to their terminals and providing the same training to all their personnel. This is all designed to ensure that our PSAs are provided up-to-date and relevant tools to explain the travel process to the passengers. All of our materials focus on you, the cuspresented to you on the AMC and local terminal Travel Webpages, and our future interactive web page will be a wonderful tool for you as well. Your time waiting for your flight will actually be spent in a more comfortable setting that will exceed the standards of most civilian airports.

As we step into the second decade of this century, we are committed to providing a better experience for our customers. We want to improve your travel experience and have you looking forward to traveling with us and always satisfied. We believe process refinement, technology innovations, and training are keys to a better travel experience, and we are always happy to hear from you. Whether you tell a PSA, fill out an Interactive Customer Evaluation (ICE) via the web, or complete a customer comment card at the terminal, we are eager to listen to what you have to say and do our best to improve your travel experience. DTJ

For more information, please visit the AMC Travel Webpage: www.amc.af.mil/amctravel

1 Space-Available travel is the specific program of travel authorized by the Department of Defense (DOD) allowing authorized passengers to occupy DOD aircraft seats that are surplus after all spacerequired passengers have been accommodated.

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