Airline Ticketing and

Reservation
Introduction to Airlines
Reservation System

© Copyright 2009
 Introduction
Airline reservation systems

© Copyright 2009
 Agenda

Home
• Key airline terms
Previous
• Introduction to Computerized
Next Reservation
Help
• Overview of Global Distribution
Systems

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Key airline terms

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 Important terms

Home • Aircraft: A vehicle capable of air transport,

such as an airplane, a helicopter, etc.
Previous

Next
• Airline: A company that provides air transport
services for passengers or freight under
Help
license from a recognized public authority.
Also known as Carrier in some geographies

• Scheduled airline: An airline that operates

its flights to a fixed schedule, i.e. flight timings
are fixed

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 Important terms

Home • Charter airline: An airline whose flights

do not have a fixed schedule
Previous

Next

• Cabin: A class of service usually

Help identified by a unique set of services
offered (e.g. Economy, Business, First,
etc.)

• Flight: A trip made by an aircraft

between two geographical locations

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 Important terms (continued…)

Home
• Itinerary: A route of journey proposed by a
Previous
traveler

Next
• Ticket: (Usually) a printed piece of paper or
Help card showing that its holder has the right to
use services on one or more specific flights

• Travel agency: A business that attends to

the travel needs of an individual or a group
of individuals

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History of Computerized Reservation
Systems

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 Background

Home • Airlines need to maintain multiple types of

information
Previous
 Route information: Covers the destinations served
by the airline
Next
 Aircraft information: Information on the aircrafts
Help
used by the airline
 Schedule information: Covers information on days
and times on which the flights operated by the
airline are scheduled to run
 Fare information: Prices for various flights
 Reservation information: Passenger and cargo
reservations, including information on passenger
tickets

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 Background (continued…)

Home • Prior to 1950 all this information was

published by airlines in large books, with
Previous separate books for each type of information

Next

• Travel agents had a really tough time

Help looking through multiple books for booking
tickets that covered multiple airlines

• It was impossible to get a real-time view of

the inventory (available seats on a flight)
since airlines could synchronize data from
multiple locations only once a day

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 Background (continued…)

Home • In order to make a booking, a customer would call up a travel

agent, providing them details of their itinerary
Previous
• Travel agent would first look up airlines, flights and schedules
matching the customer’s itinerary
Next

Help
• Customer would then call up individual airlines to check seat
availability

• Once seat availability was confirmed, travel agent would look

up the price appropriate for the flights selected and inform
the customer

• Upon confirmation from the customer, travel agent would call

the airlines back to reserve the seats

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 Background (continued…)

Home • In 1950 American Airlines decided to set

up a computerized system that would allow
Previous real-time access to all its data across all its
offices and travel agents
Next

Help • As a result, Semi-Automated Business

Research Environment, or SABRE was born
in 1964. It was the first computerized airline
system (CRS) in the world

• SABRE was developed as a joint effort

between IBM and American Airlines

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 Background (continued…)

Home • When created, SABRE ran on two IBM 7090

mainframes. The system was upgraded to IBM
Previous
S/360 in 1972
Next

Help
• In the 1970s and 80s multiple CRSs came up in
North America

• The first non-North American CRS was

developed jointly by Air France, Lufthansa,
Iberia and SAS in 1987. It was named Amadeus

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Overview of Computerized Reservation
Systems

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 Functions provided by a CRS

Home • A CRS typically provides the following functions

 Flight schedule information: Days and times for flights
Previous operated by the airline
 Availability information: Seat availability on a flight by
Next
service class, i.e. Economy, Business or First class
 Fare quotes: A consolidated fare for an itinerary based
Help
on flight, day, time, service class and passenger types
chosen
 Reservation information: Seat bookings
 Ticketing information: Generating and storing tickets
 Refunds and cancellations: Cancellation of existing
reservations and tickets

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 An availability display screen

Home

Previous

Next

Help

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 A fare display screen

Home

Previous

Next

Help

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Overview of Global Distribution Systems

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 History behind Global Distribution
Systems
Home • Although the CRSs simplified the task of maintaining
airline data, they brought in new problems
Previous  In order to handle increasing passenger traffic, large
computer systems were required for CRSs. This created a
cost burden for airlines, especially the smaller ones which
Next
did not have enough money to spend on expensive
mainframe technology
Help
 CRSs were airline specific. This required travel agencies
who wanted to sell tickets for multiple airlines to have
individual connections to each airline separately
 Availability and fare searches across airlines was not
possible since each airline had its own CRS. Since most
passengers were interested in purchasing the cheapest
fare rather than a specific airline, travel agents had to
spend inordinate amount of time to determine cheapest
fares across airlines

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 The birth of Global Distribution
Systems
Home
• CRSs recognized the need to host data for
more than one airline in order to bring
Previous
efficiencies to a growing airline industry
Next

Help • Thus, CRSs transformed from being single

airline reservation systems to multi airline
distribution systems (GDSs)

• These GDSs also decided to share data among

each other to bring in additional efficiencies

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 Life of a travel agent before GDSs

Home

Previous
Airline CRS

Mainframe connectivity
Next

Help

Mainframe connectivity

Airline CRS
Travel agent

Mainframe connectivity

Airline CRS

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 Problems before advent of GDSs

Home • Travel agents required individual connections to

airlines
Previous

• If two or more airlines used different mainframe

Next
systems, travel agents had to use and be trained on
different mainframe clients
Help

• Inability to perform direct searches across airline

systems

• Combining airline inventories a tedious process

because inventory searches and reservations had to be
performed in individual airline CRSs separately

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 Life of a travel agent after GDSs

Home
Mainframe connectivity
Airline CRS
Mainframe / TCP-IP connectivity
Previous
Mainframe connectivity
Travel agent
GDS Airline CRS
Next Mainframe connectivity

Synchronization link

Help Airline CRS

Mainframe connectivity
Airline CRS
Synchronization link

Mainframe connectivity

Airline CRS GDS

Mainframe connectivity
Mainframe connectivity
Synchronization link
Airline CRS

Airline CRS
Mainframe connectivity

GDS Airline CRS

Mainframe connectivity

Airline CRS

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 Advantages of a GDS

Home • Simplified access to possibly all airlines,

through a single interface
Previous

Next
• Ability to connect to multiple airlines either
Help
through legacy mainframe clients or modern
PC based clients

• Less maintenance and up-keep overhead

• Ability to combine airline inventories

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 How GDSs have evolved

Home • Due to airline CRSs being based on mainframes, GDSs

have been based on mainframes as well
Previous

• Over the last few decades, GDSs have started

Next providing direct connectivity from non-mainframe
clients such as PCs
Help

• GDSs have also started leasing hosting space

(hardware, software and connectivity) to airlines
which do not want to create and host their own CRSs

• The advent of Internet has seen GDSs offer innovative

products suited for accessing airline information over
the Internet

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 How GDSs have evolved
(continued…)
Home
• GDSs now provide access to non-air
Previous products as well:
 Car rentals
Next

 Hotel booking
Help
 Packaged holidays
 Cruises and ships
 Railways
 Local road transport: bus, tram, taxi

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 Major GDSs in operation today

Home • Amadeus
 Founded in 1987 by Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa and
Previous
SAS
 Head-quartered in Madrid, Spain
Next  Largest booking share in Europe
 Third largest booking share across the globe
Help  Used by www.ebookers.com, www.expedia.co.uk and
www.opodo.com
• Galileo
 Founded in 1993 by 11 major North American and
European airlines
 Head-quartered in Atlanta, Georgia, USA
 Second largest booking share across the globe
 Used by www.cheaptickets.com, www.ebookers.com

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 Major GDSs in operation today
(continued…)
Home • SABRE
 Founded in 1964 by American Airlines and IBM
Previous
 Head-quartered in Southlake, Texas, USA
Next  Largest booking share across the world
 Used by www.expedia.com, www.travelocity.com
Help

• Worldspan
 Founded in 1990 by Delta Airlines, Northwest
Airlines and Transworld Airlines
 Merged with Galileo in 2006
 Used by www.orbitz.com, www.hotwire.com,
www.priceline.com

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Recap and summary

© Copyright 2009
 Summary

Home
• Airlines need to store multiple types of
Previous
information such as routes, schedule, fares
and reservations
Next

Help • Travel agents need access to multiple pieces

of information before making a reservation

• Before 1950 airline information was stored,

distributed and accessed through non-
electronic media

© Copyright 2009 Slide 30

 Summary (continued…)

Home
• First computerized airline reservation system
Previous
(airline CRS), SABRE created in 1964 as a
collaboration between IBM and American
Next Airlines

Help

• CRSs evolved into GDSs over a period of

time

• 4 major GDSs operational today – SABRE,

Worldspan, Galileo and Amadeus

© Copyright 2009 Slide 31

Thank you!

© Copyright 2009