OAG unveils intranet-based travel planning software

OAG Worldwide has expanded its government business unit and launched a product to meet the growing federal demand for employee travel planning software to replace traditional paper-based methods.

The government business unit of the firm, which boasts customers from almost every federal agency, has added four new employees, and five current workers have been promoted to positions with increased emphasis on federal government work.

OAG, Oak Brook, Ill., also has introduced a new intranet version of its Official Traveler Flight Disk software. This software, which OAG also offers to the government in desktop, notebook and local-area network versions, includes government contract fares and flight schedules for more than 580,000 direct flights worldwide.

The product lets government users copy travel information directly to a formatted screen and print out a standard government travel request form. The software also offers travel items such as hotel booking information and details on rental cars.

For federal users, this data is automatically customized to include flight information and fares for all General Services Administration contracts.

OAG processes 100,000 daily changes to the flight schedules of every airline in the world. Curt Reilly, publisher and vice president of the government business unit, said the company also offers various versions of the product to meet the needs of the government, which spends more than $7 billion annually on travel and is the travel industry's largest customer.

"It's really the marketplace that has demanded our expansion," Reilly said. "There's certainly a much greater increase in going paperless."

The International Trade Commission has a site license for 125 employees to use the LAN version of the flight software. Queenie Cox, director of the Office of Finance and Budget at the commission, said the software allows employees to plan the details of their flights and hotel stays without having to contact a travel agent in advance.

"It makes it easier for them to determine which flights they would like to take," Cox said. "They can actually go on the system, and it will pull up the flight closest to the time they want to leave. It's also set up so they only receive government contract fares."