7th Pay Commission: Government revises air ticket booking rules for employees on LTC, check details

7th Pay Commission: The Central Government has revised air ticket booking rules for employees on Leave Travel Concession (LTC), addressing challenges and ensuring a smoother process. According to the recent memorandum by the Personnel and Training Department, individuals without proof of air ticket booking through a travel agent until August 29, 2022, will benefit from the changes.

To streamline the process, the government specified that registered travel agents, including M/s Balmer Lawrie & Company Limited, M/s Ashok Travels & Tours, and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited, must provide flight details. When booking air tickets within the designated time frame, employees are required to choose the cheapest fare, with a 10% additional allowance.

Booking through registered travel agents' websites, such as BLCL, ATT, and IRCTC, will be considered as complying with the guidelines, assuming the individual government employee selected the cheapest fare. All agents are instructed to issue tickets labeled with LTC for LTC journeys.

In cases where non-entitled government employees directly travel by air from their headquarters to destinations in NER, Jammu and Kashmir, A&N, Ladakh under the Special Concession Scheme, a printout must be obtained in the same time slot. If tickets are unavailable in that slot, a printout of the next slot's flight details can be kept for claim settlement purposes. Additionally, all three ATAs are directed to allow registration for employees without official email accounts.