Travel services

Tender description

The provision of a number of travel services which include, but are not limited to, booking of scheduled and chartered flights and hotels, for immigration purposes. The Home Office is responsible, under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, for detaining and/or enforcing the removal of certain persons (returnees) from the UK. Returnees (and when required security escort staff) are transported either by scheduled flights with commercial carriers or via chartered aircraft. The core objective of the Travel Service is to manage the transport arrangements for those individuals being removed from the UK. There may also be a requirement to manage travel arrangements for other immigration/government purposes as required by the Authority e.g. for Prisoner Transfers overseas. The Home Office was seeking commercial partner(s) for the provision of a range of travel booking services. These services include (but are not limited to): — Provision of a comprehensive travel service that complies with requirements and restrictions imposed in relation to the transportation of immigration passengers by carriers for scheduled flights; — Provision of tickets for Service Users, taking into account restrictions imposed by individual airlines; — Following detailed and specific individual airline procedures for obtaining refunds; — Managing relationships with the carriers to maximise cost-effective opportunities; — Provision of a complete Charter service as necessary; — Providing hotel bookings as necessary. The contract value of 5 690 193 GBP, as provided at Section II.1.7), is a whole life cost at today's price for the full contract period of 7 years (5 years initial period and 2 years extension). This value does not include pass through costs, which are estimated to be in the region of 200 000 000 GBP and are associated with purchase costs for tickets, chartering aircraft(s) and hotel bookings.