Introduction

Airline reservation systems

March 2009

Copyright 2009
 Agenda

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

Copyright 2009 Slide 2

Key airline terms

Copyright 2009
 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 license
from a recognized public authority. Also known as
Help

Carrier in some geographies

Scheduled airline: An airline that operates its

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

Copyright 2009 Slide 4

 Important terms

Home
Charter airline: An airline whose flights
Previous
do not have a fixed schedule

Next

Cabin: A class of service usually identified

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

Flight: A trip made by an aircraft between

two geographical locations

Copyright 2009 Slide 5

 Important terms (continued)

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

Next

Ticket: (Usually) a printed piece of paper or card

Help 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 6

History of Computerized Reservation Systems

Copyright 2009
 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 used by
Help
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

Copyright 2009 Slide 8

 Background (continued)

Home Prior to 1950 all this information was published by

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

Next

Travel agents had a really tough time looking

Help 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 9

 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 customers itinerary
Next

Customer would then call up individual airlines to check seat

Help
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

Copyright 2009 Slide 10

 Background (continued)

Home In 1950 American Airlines decided to set up a

computerized system that would allow real-time
Previous 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 11

 Background (continued)

Home
When created, SABRE ran on two IBM 7090
Previous
mainframes. The system was upgraded to IBM
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

Copyright 2009 Slide 12

Overview of Computerized Reservation Systems

Copyright 2009
 Functions provided by a CRS

Home A CRS typically provides the following functions

Flight schedule information: Days and times for flights
operated by the airline
Previous

Next
Availability information: Seat availability on a flight by
service class, i.e. Economy, Business or First class
Help Fare quotes: A consolidated fare for an itinerary based 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 14

 An availability display screen

Home

Previous

Next

Help

Copyright 2009 Slide 15

 A fare display screen

Home

Previous

Next

Help

Copyright 2009 Slide 16

Overview of Global Distribution Systems

Copyright 2009
 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
Next
airlines, especially the smaller ones which 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 18

 The birth of Global Distribution Systems

Home
CRSs recognized the need to host data for more
Previous
than one airline in order to bring 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 19

 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 20

 Problems before advent of GDSs

Home Travel agents required individual connections to airlines

Previous
If two or more airlines used different mainframe systems,
travel agents had to use and be trained on different
Next
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

Copyright 2009 Slide 21

 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 22

 Advantages of a GDS

Home Simplified access to possibly all airlines, through a

single interface
Previous

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

Less maintenance and up-keep overhead

Ability to combine airline inventories

Copyright 2009 Slide 23

 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 providing

Next 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 24

 How GDSs have evolved (continued)

Home
GDSs now provide access to non-air
Previous products as well:
Next
Car rentals
Hotel booking
Help

Packaged holidays
Cruises and ships
Railways
Local road transport: bus, tram, taxi

Copyright 2009 Slide 25

 Major GDSs in operation today

Home Amadeus
Founded in 1987 by Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa and SAS
Previous Head-quartered in Madrid, Spain
Largest booking share in Europe
Next
Third largest booking share across the globe
Used by www.ebookers.com, www.expedia.co.uk and
Help 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 26

 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

Copyright 2009 Slide 27

Recap and summary

Copyright 2009
 Summary

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

Next

Travel agents need access to multiple pieces of

Help information before making a reservation

Before 1950 airline information was stored,

distributed and accessed through non-electronic
media

Copyright 2009 Slide 29

 Summary (continued)

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

Help CRSs evolved into GDSs over a period of time

4 major GDSs operational today SABRE,

Worldspan, Galileo and Amadeus

Copyright 2009 Slide 30

Questions?

Copyright 2009