The Ministry of Defence (MOD) today launched an online travel booking system for service personnel which it said will cut costs by £35m per year.

The Defence Travel system will be open to 300,000 army, navy and air force staff. MOD business travel currently costs £300m each year and the price comparison element of the system will help cut costs.
Armed forces minister Bob Ainsworth MP launched the system today in Whitehall

Sir Ian Andrews, second permanent under-secretary at the MOD, said: "We are confident that it will provide a better service to users and save significant sums of money, helping to ensure that as much as possible of every pound we spend is directed to the front line where it can really make an impact on achieving our objectives."

Defence Travel will allow personnel to compare budget airlines with scheduled carriers or rail for any given journey. It will also generate management information that will help the MOD in its negotiations to get better deals with travel providers. The savings are expected to start in 2009.

Hogg Robinson helped develop the travel service component and Capgemini rolled the system out.

"The core IT systems supporting the Defence Travel service run on the Defence Electronic Commerce Service (DECS) multi-purpose platform provided to the MOD by Capgemini UK under long-term contract and managed from a Capgemini UK secure datacentre in the UK using employees with special security clearance," the MOD said in a statement.