Too Many Tickets

The Defense Department has wasted at least $100 million on tickets for flights that employees never boarded, General Accounting Office investigators recently told lawmakers.

GAO has previously reported widespread abuse of individual employee travel cards, which work like credit cards. But the

From 1997 to 2003, the Defense Department paid as much as $100 million for plane tickets that went unused, Gregory Kutz, GAO director of financial management and assurance, told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. His estimate is based on data provided by five major airlines and the Bank of America, where Defense holds its central credit card accounts.

In fiscal 2001 and 2002 alone, the Pentagon paid at least $21.1 million for nearly 28,000 unused tickets, the data shows. These figures likely underestimate the true extent of waste, Kutz told lawmakers, because the financially strapped airlines lacked incentives to fully report tickets that were not used.