Official travel changes coming in October Published Sept. 12, 2012 By James F. Taggart 66th Logistics Readiness Squadron HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- As of Oct. 1, all official travel requests made in the Defense Travel System or directly with the commercial travel office must be purchased and confirmed 72 hours prior to the departure date and time or the reservation will be canceled directly by the airlines. The Commercial Travel Office/Airtrak Inc. and the Traffic Management Office were recently notified of the upcoming change. This is a new requirement to be implemented as a response to the airline industry's request for relief regarding reservations that are neither paid for, nor canceled prior to departure. It is strongly advised that anyone with future plans to travel, make their reservation requests as early as possible so orders may be approved prior to the 72 hour window. The travel office wants to ensure all travelers have confirmed tickets and avoid having any reservations canceled. It is the traveler's full responsibility to regularly check the status of their orders and to contact orders approving official if necessary. It is also advised that DTS users update all profile information, especially phone numbers. The CTO is experiencing issues attempting to contact travelers, so taking the time to check DTS profiles and update information can save valuable time. This will not only benefit DTS users, but will allow CTO to better assist all travelers with any travel plans or issues. Steve Morin, installation deployment officer, noted that this will not affect AC and AK-coded inter-theater airlift missions, but it will affect commercial travel for deployers that booked through Airtrak to get to their Combat Skills Training training location or to their point of entry. For any questions, contact Jill Sullivan via email at Jill.Sullivan@hanscom.af.mil, via phone at 781-225-1456 or call Jamelih Khudari at 781-862-6400.