In this first section of the Certified Government Travel Professional Training Course, it was very interesting to read of the history of the whole travel industry. I have always had a love of travel dating back to 1974 when I attended and graduated from Weaver Airline Personnel School inKansas City, Missouri. At the time I worked full time at Michigan State University and completed a correspondence portion at home and then spent one month in residence at the school in Kansas City. It was an intense and informative time at the school. As it turns out, I did not end up with a travel industry position until 1985 when I became a part time reservations agent with Piedmont Airlines. Again, I was working full time at another job and the airline work in the evenings. I considered it my “fun” job with the opportunity of “non-rev” travel opportunities. As I read through Part 1, so many of the acronyms came back to me, something a true travel fanatic doesn’t forget. What I most enjoyed about this section is reading how the whole government travel system has evolved, just as the airline reservation system evolved. When I first completed the airline course, we actually learned the manual way of preparing an airline ticket at the time. Just look how far we have come with electronic ticketing. It is truly amazing. The same could be said of making reservations with an airline reservations sales agent. The whole experience was very educational since it made me thoroughly understand the whole reservation process.
By Joyce Wahoski