TITLE:

DEVELOPMENT OF A MOBILE AIRLINE RESERVATION APPLICATION

AUTHORS:
Alo O.O.*, Adeyanju I.A, Muritala A.A., Olabiyisi S.O. and Omidiora E.O.

ABSTRACT
Mobile applications are becoming inevitable in people's day-to-day activities. It has become part of
daily living for several people, something one cannot do without in all facets of economic growth of any
country. This is evident in the convenience and ease of service delivery customers are provided with. Some
examples of successful implementation of mobile communications in businesses are: in banking (mobile
banking), education (eLearning), payment of utility bills (e-Billing) etc. To promptly examine the potential
benefits of Mobile Airline Reservation System (MARS), this work looks into existing process of seat reservation
in the Nigerian Aviation Industry and explains potential benefits of the widespread adoption of MARS. This
paper discusses the software architectural model of MARS and concludes that its effective implementation
with real time mobile access across the country can save time, cost, and other risks.

INTRODUCTION
Travel is by its very nature mobile, and “going mobile” is currently considered by many travel
specialists as a central part of travel agents’ strategy for growth, even a do-or-die decision for travel industry
(Abacus, 2008). In recent times, a number of handheld mobile communications devices have taken
prominence with a significant impact on global business operations. This is evident in the convenience and
ease of service delivery customers are provided in examples of successful implementation of mobile
communications in businesses. For instance, mobile banking applications provide useful information to bank
customers such as: access to users account, current bank balance, an un-cleared balances, payment of
utility bills and effecting transfers between accounts (Oloyede and Adeyemo, 2006). In addition, it is observed
in certain industries, handheld mobile communications may bring similar better closer partnerships between
a company and its customers. One of such industries, particularly in the West African sub region of the world
is Nigeria Airline Industry. In order to develop an edge over competitors, airline operators in general need to
create a sustainable competitive advantage based on increased operational effectiveness and adequate
strategic positioning. If integrated properly into the value chain, a “mobile” technology business model can
increase an airline’s operating efficiency and customer satisfaction by facilitating business processes,
providing customers with value added services and by creating synergies between an airline’s core
competencies and mobile technology (Ekelhart and Manhoot, 2008). Furthermore, implementing a business
model using the mobile communication technology can increase the level of personalization of a company’s
business relations, which in turn creates new possibilities of customer segmentation. Such business model is
generally 2 deployed in form of mobile web applications which integrate existing internet technology with the
competitive edge of mobile technology making it possible to have access to information anytime, anywhere. A
web application is that which has been specifically designed to be executed in a web-based environment
(www.wirelesscenter.net, 2011). With MARS, passengers can be tracked on purchasing preferences and with
this, special flight packages for existing passengers can be promoted. Passengers’ reservations patterns can
also be used to determine the marketable flight and then try to provide more flights and services to fulfill the
high demand. Besides, MARS is also capable of increasing passenger loyalty and satisfaction by providing
good reservation and services. Traditional paper reservation records have many drawbacks like incomplete,
torn, worn, misplaced, or loss of records. It also requires a lot of storage space in addition to requiring
extensive administrative time from user. Also, most airline reservation system applications within the Nigerian
Aviation Industry are produced by foreign companies and are very expensive to maintain. With the
implementation of MARS, cost and time required is minimal since expertise will be available locally in case of
any software failures. However, there will be increase at the rate in which people reserve seats because there
will be no more queue at the airline checking desk. All that will be required is to get bar-coded message to the
port of entry for confirmation and get on the plane. Thus, it gives satisfaction and better convenience to
passengers. The flight ticket reservation method has better organization of information for better retrieval with
MARS. All other relevant data can be managed and well-organized using the system. Data will be stored in the
database accordingly. Thus, users can make a clear view on any data as they wish without any problem.
(Hens, 2006).

METHODOLOGY
Architectural Design
The technological approach for implementing the mobile airline reservation is based on an
architecture, which provides the necessary framework for the services, components and interfaces. At the
back-end, the service includes authentication, authorization and other 4 services. The hardware and software
component that was used provides a logical relationship between applications, end-user services, and
underlining back-end services. The database, the mobile phone, and the designed application form the
technological infrastructure for accessing, storing and managing information. Figure 1: Architectural design
for MARS From the diagram in Figure 1, when the user request for flight information for booking, the
information will be called from the web servers, and after the choosing of the necessary flight the request will
be forwarded to the web server and from there sent to the Payment Plan servers to check for the authenticity
of the payment. If the payment is authentic, the request 5 is sent back to the web server and server forwarded
it to the database of the Airline for successful reservation. After this, the user booking for flight would be
alerted that the reservation processing is completed successfully through the phone. However, if the payment
is not authentic then there will be no reservation.

MARS Implementation
The MARS applications were developed using Xcode for software design on iPhones and Java was used
for the development on Blackberry phones. C#.NET is used for the front-end and SQL server used for the
back-end. Security, which is the most paramount factor, is ensured in such a way that only the authorized
user is allowed to have access to usage of this application on its mobile phone. Figure 2 shows the steps
involved in booking a flight with the developed MARS application as screenshots. Step 1 shows the logging-in
page of the designed software. This is the point of authentication. The authenticated user is approved in Step
2 while Step 3 shows the booking page for the designed software where the user selects a particular flight that
suites her schedule. Step 4 shows the payment page where the user will have to enter the payment card
number and a confirmation page will be sent if authentic. If not, a message will be sent to indicate a wrong
entry and the booking will not be successfully completed. Step 5 shows how the receipt for the airplane seat
reservation is generated, which will be used at the point-of-entry in the airport when travelling.

CONCLUSION
The purpose of this work is to build a mobile application, which a customer could use to interact with
the airlines reservation through m-tickets (mobile tickets) booking in the Nigerian Aviation Industry. Based on
the input specification, hardware requirement, software requirement; Microsoft visual Studio.Net {c#},
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and algorithm design, the application is very flexible and dynamic in nature.
Mobile Airline Reservation System is the best way of airline reservation because of its ease of use and
availability when needed. With these benefits, the introduction of the Mobile system in Nigerians’ aviation
system will boost the economy and aids its process of technological advancement. The intention is to do an
extensive evaluation of the application through initial pilot studies with simulated users. The outcome of the
evaluation will then be used to adapt the application for commercial use by interested airlines within the
Nigeria and beyond.

CITATION: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology,
P.M.B. 4000, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria.