What is an airline reservation system? Airline reservations are one part of a much bigger picture when it comes to planes, passengers and air travel. This article explains what an airline reservation system is, how it developed, what it does and how it fits into the wider travel distribution system.
What is an airline reservation system?
Known by the acronym ARS, these are systems which allow airlines to sell their seats. As such, they contain information on schedules and fares alongside a database of reservations, e.g passenger names, and of tickets issued where applicable.
Today they are fully computerised. An airline reservation system is a type of computer reservation system (CRS), and it is usually linked to one or more global distribution systems (GDSs) – the three main GDSs are Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. GDSs allow travel agencies, online travel agencies (OTAs) and other distribution channels to search and book flights for most major airlines through a single system. Metasearch sites such as Skyscanner then compare fares from airlines and OTAs and pass customers on to them to book.
The history of the airline reservation system
In the early days of air travel, airline reservation systems were very much physical – before computers and way before the internet. Dedicated reservation centres dealt with creating and assigning paper tickets which represented the number of seats sold onboard the airline’s flights; each airline would have their own offices and centres for this.
They would have physical index cards to show which seats – and how many – were booked on a flight, and companies used the ‘request and reply’ system. This involved someone (usually a sales agent) calling the reservation centre to request a flight, and awaiting a reply to find out whether their booking was successful. Because of the physical nature of bookings at this time, the person at the reservation centre would have to walk to a filing cabinet and check; they would then return to the phone and deliver the answer. If this flight was full, the agent would speak to the potential passenger and ascertain if an alternative flight would work. They would then relay this information back to the reservation centre staff, who would have to get up and go back to the filing cabinet and so on and so forth.
American Airlines was the first to do away with this request and reply system in 1939. According to Simple Flying, ‘Now, any office could sell tickets for a flight, as long as it was less than 75% full. This removed the need for sales agents to phone particular booking offices, thus expediting the reservations process. Only once a flight reached the 75% full mark did bookings for it have to be carried out using the older method.’
Airline reservation systems going digital
The request and reply system was slow and inefficient. Charles Amman worked with American Airlines to put together the sell and report system mentioned above, where flights could be booked from any office until 75% full. However, this did little to fix the issue if a flight was beyond 75% booked.
To get ahead of this problem, Charles Amman proposed an automated electronic system that would be able to store and show seat inventory. He mocked up a system for this in 1944, just for a single flight, and showed it to AA president C. R. Smith. From here, Smith approved funding for getting the real device built. The Reservisor came to life thanks to the Teleregister Company in Stamford, Connecticut.
The next big breakthrough came when American Airlines teamed up with IBM to develop SABRE (Semi-Automated Business Research Environment), which became fully operational in 1964. SABRE was one of the first large-scale commercial computer systems in the world and could process tens of thousands of bookings a day, transforming the way airline seats were sold. It later became the basis of Sabre, one of today’s leading global distribution systems.
What does an airline reservation system do?
An ARS allows airline schedules, fare tariffs, passenger reservations and ticket records to be collated in one place, accessible by the airline and also pushed out to the global distribution system so third party companies – and individuals using the internet/apps – can book flights too.
In 1976, United Airlines’ Apollo system and American Airlines’ SABRE system were installed in travel agencies for the first time, allowing agents to book flights directly.
While airlines previously developed their own reservation systems, this is now typically the domain of private companies which airlines opt to use. Modern reservation systems allow passengers to make bookings directly on an airline’s website or through a third-party booking system. Through these systems, passengers and agents can see flight times and schedules as well as fares and tariffs. Being able to see and access pricing information is important because airlines use dynamic pricing and revenue management, meaning prices go up and down based on factors such as demand and how far in advance a booking is made.
When a booking is made, the number of available seats is reduced. The airline reservation system is updated to reflect that, so flight availability is shown in real time to passengers, agents and the airline itself. These modern airline reservation systems mean that the airline doesn’t have to have as much hands-on involvement with ticketing.
In recent years, airlines have also been changing how they distribute their fares. IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) is a data standard that allows airlines to sell richer content – such as seat selection, bundles and ancillary extras – directly to travel agents and online channels. Some airlines, including Lufthansa Group, British Airways and American Airlines, have encouraged agents to book through NDC rather than traditional GDS channels, in some cases by adding surcharges to GDS bookings or making certain fares available only through NDC.
Inventory management
Available seats are referred to as ‘inventory’ across the airline industry. This is then, for many airlines, split into the different service classes – economy, premium economy and so on.
There are also fare classes; different prices and booking conditions apply to these, such as there being a different fare basis for each service class. There are also other conditions, such as ‘excursion fares’, which come with a minimum and maximum stay between the outbound and return flights and are aimed at holidaymakers rather than business travellers. Each fare is identified by a fare basis code, which tells airline staff and travel agents which booking class and fare rules apply to a ticket, such as whether it can be changed or refunded.
Inventory management allows for seat availability to be controlled which should, in theory, limit overbooking – although this is often done on purpose and is not reflective of any faults within an overall airline reservation system.
Part of the inventory management system is the flight schedule management system – this impacts everything. It is vital for ticket sales – knowing when planes are flying from A to B in order for people to book correct flights for their destination. It is also important when it comes to aircraft maintenance, assigning crew members to flights, and airport coordination too. Inventory data comes from the schedule system, and if flight availability changed so would seat availability – so they are intertwined.
Availability display/reservation
When users access an airline’s inventory as part of the airline reservation system, this is through an availability display. The display or user interface contains all of the offered flights for a particular route (e.g London Heathrow to Kraków) with available seats in the different booking classes. This display contains flights which are operated by the airline itself as well as codeshare flights, which are operated by a partner airline but sold under the airline’s own flight number, and connecting itineraries involving more than one flight. Standard industry interfaces allow for the availability of these ‘shared flights’ to be updated.
Individual/group passenger reservation information is stored in a PNR, or ‘passenger name record’. This will contain information such as the passenger’s name and contact details, ID info, what flight(s) they are booked onto and on what fare, any extras like baggage and so on. Special services requests (SSRs) are also stored here like vegetarian meals or accessibility requests. This information can be stored as a profile, so people don’t need to add their information all over again every time they make a booking.
Passenger information is given to the departure control system – they check passengers in and deal with baggage. Reservation information is given to the flight operations system as well as crew management and the catering services so everything can be taken care of from their ends. Information is also given to administrative departments where required, for accounting and reporting purposes. And the system updates itself after take-off, making note of passengers who checked in, passengers who didn’t show up, passengers who showed up without a reservation and so on.
Other
Some airline reservation systems allow for integration with systems to book onward travel. For example, Lufthansa Express Rail allows passengers to book Deutsche Bahn train journeys to and from Frankfurt and Munich airports as part of their flight booking.
Since 2008, when IATA ended the use of paper tickets in its settlement systems, virtually all airline tickets have been issued electronically. The ticketing system stores and issues these e-tickets, which are held in a database containing all the necessary information: passenger name, ticket number, flight details, fare and so on.
Notable airline reservation systems
While the names will mean little to most passengers, there are some airline reservation (or passenger service) systems which are big players in the industry. These include:
- Amadeus Altéa
- SabreSonic (Sabre)
- Navitaire New Skies (owned by Amadeus and widely used by low-cost airlines)
- Hitit Crane PAX
- IBS iFly Res
- ACCELaero
- AirCore
- Videcom Reservations System
- TakeFlite Solutions
- Travel Technology Interactive Solutions
They all differ slightly. Some have e-commerce systems built in where others do not, and many are now cloud-based. All are used by airlines to provide smooth operating when it comes to booking, managing and updating commercial flight availability.
Airline reservation systems: FAQs
Below are answers to some of the most common questions about airline reservation systems.
What is an airline reservation system?
An airline reservation system (ARS) is a computer system that allows an airline to sell its seats. It stores flight schedules, fares, seat availability, passenger bookings and ticket records.
What is the difference between an ARS and a GDS?
An airline reservation system belongs to (or is used by) a single airline, while a global distribution system, such as Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport, connects many airlines’ systems so that travel agents can search and book flights from multiple airlines in one place.
What was the first computerised airline reservation system?
American Airlines and IBM developed SABRE, which became fully operational in 1964 and was one of the first large-scale commercial computer systems in the world.
What is a PNR?
A PNR, or passenger name record, is the record of a booking in a reservation system. It includes the passenger’s name and contact details, flights, fare, ticket information and any special service requests.
What is NDC in air travel?
NDC, or New Distribution Capability, is an IATA data standard that allows airlines to distribute richer content, such as bundles, seat selection and extras, directly to travel agents and online channels.
What is an airline reservation system? Further reading
If you found this article about airline reservation systems useful, these articles may also be of interest:
- The chain of distribution: Made easy
- The 3 Major Types Of Airlines + How They Work
- What are the categories of airline ancillary revenue?
- IATA airport codes – list of every airport code in the world
- What is a host agency? Travel agent tips and tricks
- How to become an independent travel agent
