Travel Representative

Updated

General

  • The Travel Representative is required for those teams who are choosing to have host families pick up participants at the airport upon arrival.
  • For the Dallas, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC gateway teams, a Travel Representative is required for departures.
  • The main responsibilities of this position are to work closely with the Orientation Coordinator and Senior Travel Rep (STR) to ensure the smooth arrivals/departures of the Area Teams participants
  • As this person will either be at the airport or communicating directly with the STR and other team volunteers who are meeting students to relay flight changes, we strongly suggest that this person should not also be the Orientation Coordinator.

Arrivals

  • Work with AT volunteers and host families to determine who will be meeting each student at Arrivals.
  • If the AT is doing host family pick up, ensure that all required information on the pick up checklist is available and shared with the host family/student.
    • A volunteer must be present at the airport to facilitate the meeting of the student/host family.
    • You may need additional meet/greet volunteers to support multiple flight arrivals at the same time.
  • Create Arrival meet/greet schedule to share with STR who, in turn, will share with RTLC.
  • Relay pick up/meet greet schedule to STR via GoogleDoc or other shared doc for easy updating/editing.
  • Coordinate transit support from the airport to the local orientation site.

Departures

  • Utilize the departure day report in Global Link to a create a master list of your departing students.
  • Update departure list with program releases (PRs) and ERs as necessary. Communicating this information with the STR.
  • Work with STR to create a drop off and airport schedules.
  • Ensure that students arrive at the airport 4 hours before departure.
  • Remain at the airport (or find coverage) until all departing flights have taken off.
  • Depending upon flight schedules, provide transit support for other groups who may be flying via your gateway en route home.

Timeline

ARRIVALS

  • Pre-May
    • With AT volunteers, define the Orientation method, ie transfer to orientation site or host family pick-up. Share with STR and/or RTLC.
    • Some partners have group travel, other partners will only be able to book travel once the student is placed. Most partners do not enter travel into GL prior to the end of May/June.
    • Some partners will not participate in the new gateway model and will only fly participants to the gateway (ie ORD, NYC, DFW). Your RTLC will have created a Google doc to communicate which partners will and will not fly (this will continue until FPC deadline at end of July).
  • Mid-June through July
    • Begin to pull Arrivals schedule report from Global Link and track placements and arrival travel details. This will help you determine the number of vols needed at the airport.
    • Work with the AT Orientation Coordinator to arrange domestic travel to the site if the team is doing a traditional orientation model.
    • Begin airport volunteer recruitment for your team.
    • Create AT airport pick up schedule and update as placements/travel are confirmed (mid-late July).
    • FPC deadline – determine which of your students have been moved to 2nd
  • August – through Arrivals week.
    • Consult with STR and RTLC about last-minute changes. Work in GoogleDoc (or other shared document platform).
    • Facilitate volunteer/host family handoff if the team is doing host family pick up.
    • Share AT pick up information/schedule with STR.
    • On the day of travel, communicate any airport changes/issues to STR.
  • Mid-August through 2nd Arrivals
    • Continue to pull Arrivals schedule, monitor placements, work with AT Orientation Coordinator to coordinate pick-ups, recruit vols.
    • Create a pick up schedule and share it with STR/AT OC. 

DEPARTURES

  • March
    • Work with RTLC to identify which students will depart from DFW vs local airport. MSP/IAD and which ones will have to go back to another gateway.
  • April/May
    • Run Departure Day report from GL for your team. Most travel is entered by our partners by early May.
    • Work with STR to draft schedule to determine # of volunteers and tasks. This will include site to airport transport, meet/greet/gathering at airport/checking in for flights/monitoring departures. 
  • June
    • Create a contact list for STR, RTLC for volunteers on site.
    • AT will receive two mailings: luggage tags/holders (1st week June) and nametag insert with int’l flight details the week prior to Departures.
    • Receive international flight manifests/airport packets from STR/RTLC.
    • Finalize student drop off schedule from EOS site to airport
    • Work with other TRs and STR to manage airport on Departure Day.
      • By the time of day, by country group, etc.

Skills:

  • Comfortable with excel/word/Google docs
  • Good with logistics
  • Well organized
  • If at the airport, can be available for long days/evenings
  • Available to overnight in case of any unusual problems during arrivals/departures.