Analysis of online flight booking systems

Not so long ago, find a flight was a much more cumbersome and complicated task than it is today. There were two possibilities, either by telephone or by physically going to the point of sale. Travel agencies or the airlines' own ticket offices were the only source of information for those who needed to book a destination. It was precisely the airlines that were the driving forces behind the introduction of information technology in ticketing management. The pioneer was American Airlines. In collaboration with IBM, one of the best known and long-established computer companies, it developed an operating system called SABRE in the early 1960s. The aim of this was to facilitate the management of reservations. The benefit was twofold: on the one hand, efficiency and resources were gained, and on the other hand, more users could be reached. This was not to mention the marketing of the product itself to third parties. In fact, it was soon sold for implementation to other airlines, as well as to travel agencies. The focus was not only on flights, but also on hotel reservations and car rental.

As a counterpoint in Europe, a similar project was developed at the end of the 1980s, sponsored by several leading European airlines: Air France, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines and Iberia. In this case the project was called Amadeus and again had IBM as a technology partner. These technology solutions, SABRE and Amadeus, are just two of the most important ones. global distribution centres (global distribution systems)henceforth referred to as GDSs. In parallel with the advance of information technology and the ever-increasing demand for flights, GDSs continued to grow and develop. By definition, a GDS is basically a macro-network that manages transactions between airlines and agencies at very high speed. It is the facilitator of communication between agents and companies. In order to bring this communication together, the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO), the main provider of airline fares and schedules to the intermediary entities (initially the GDSs). Today, GDSs remain a crucial link between travel agencies and airlines, but the technological boom we have been experiencing for some time now has led to the emergence of new avenues of exploration in the field of flight booking.

It was inevitable to exploit the potential of websites, within the reach of the vast majority of flight buyers, to accommodate this action without the strict need to use GDSs as the only access point. With the emergence of travel agency websites, a new form of service with more autonomy and convenience for the user appears. It is now the end customer who has the option of making the arrangements (hotel, flight, rental car...) from home. This factor gave birth to the first OTAs (online travel agencies), with the profile online as an exclusive source of revenue. One of the pioneers and best known today was Expedia, launched by Microsoft in 1996. Airlines were quick to join the initiative, offering their own web booking platforms. US-based SouthWest and European airlines Ryanair and EasyJet were among the first to use web technologies to reach more customers. The airlines with a profile of low-cost were originally the most likely to open the doors to the internet. Thus, in the first decade of the new millennium, there were already numerous agencies and airlines offering flights via the internet. This competition was and is a win-win situation. On the one hand, the customer can choose between several options, when perhaps before he only knew the one offered by his trusted agent. On the other hand, the companies themselves have a much greater market focus by opening up to the network of networks.

This context, with so much to choose from, is the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of a new concept: the metasearch engines. They are, if you will forgive the redundancy, search engines for search engines. They sift through all the agency and airline portals with which they have a relationship in order to offer the user a list of the prices of each provider from the page itself. One of the pioneers was the now defunct FareChase, but soon came other websites that are very popular today, such as Skyscanner, Kayak or Momondo. Even the computer giant Google began to make a move in this market niche with the appearance of Google Flights (1) .

Each of these websites receives millions of queries per dayand have evolved into an ever-expanding and more comprehensive range of services. Not only can flights be obtained from these portals, but also other elements of any trip, such as hotels, rental cars, activities and even insurance, can be purchased. The online presence of many of them is not only limited to the website itself, but also to mechanisms aimed at third parties such as advertising from other websites and the provision of services to external users. For example, Skyscanner makes it easy for developers of other products to use its APIs (2) (1).Application Programming Interface) so that they can use the services offered by the company from other platforms.

The aim of all these flight search and booking companies could not remain oblivious to the rise in the number of flights to the smartphones. The increase in the use of mobile devices with internet access is growing unstoppably, therefore, it is essential for these companies to have a good ppp to reach the end user. The trend is clearly upwards when it comes to the use of mobile phones to search for and book flights. In a recent survey (3), Spain stood out as the country with the third highest growth in the use of this medium. In the United States, another study estimated that in 2016 the use of mobile phones as a flight management tool was already number one (4) for users who book flights digitally. In this way, the massive computerisation of our lives, coupled with the boom in mobile applications in recent years, has led to the use of mobile phones as a tool to manage flights. an unsuspected ease in the flight search and booking process. The future looks bright and the aviation industry, represented in this case by the airlines, must be aware of the utmost importance of being successfully visible in the field of information technologies. This gives rise to several, sometimes complementary, paths to follow:

Enhancing and facilitating reserve mechanisms from the airlines' own websites and applications. The aim is to break the perception that the best price is obtained through external booking sites rather than through the airlines' own booking sites, as this study shows (5). For example, Lufthansa will incentivise in-house bookings by charging a 16 euro fee for all bookings made through third parties (6)(7). This is the love-hate relationship with GDSs. Paradoxically, the German airline was one of the founders of Amadeus, but they see how they do not get full benefit from agency bookings, which usually go through these platforms.
Investing and partnering with search and booking entities. This factor is key for a company not to lose visibility on the websites and applications most used by users searching for flights. It is essential for them to be well positioned in this global market in order not to lose opportunities. For example, Ryanair reached an agreement with Amadeus itself so that users of the system have access to several of the Irish airline's fares (8).
Targeting reserves through mobile devices. With the increasing use of smartphonesIn addition, airlines need to have a presence in the ppp in line with their professionalism in order to attract more customers. Not only is that enough, but it is also about exploiting the advantages offered by the phone itself. It is a truism that it is usually an inseparable object for the user, and that it can be exploited to make life easier. This is where concepts such as mobile check-in come into play. For example, Alitalia is one of the many companies that offer it (9).

In addition to the above-mentioned measures, a key cross-cutting factor to all participants in the backup mechanisms is promoting technology. As has long been evident in this interconnected world, the present and future of flight processing will be geared towards embracing the development of the constantly advancing IT sector. Movements in this field are not only exclusive to airlines.. The flight search companies are also investing in new data centres and in developing new techniques to help them stand out in a highly competitive segment. Such is the case of Skyscanner, which sought new solutions to scale its constant growth with the IT company DELL (10). Let us not forget that underneath the tip of the iceberg that is the booking and search portals, there is a huge amount of information that needs to be processed properly and at very high speed. This is where the term Big Datawhich roughly represents the analysis and exploitation of data stored over time to convert it into useful knowledge. The power of this information, properly managed, can make a company increase its profits dramatically, hence the importance of investment in research.

The technological future

The present is already showing us the way with regard to search and booking procedures. Regardless of the speed of communications, the correct use of Big Data techniques has given rise to concepts that were unthinkable until recently. Currently several platforms such as Kayak (11) or Skyscanner (12) offer advice on the best time to make a booking. That is to say, we can already be aware of the scenario of forward prices to decide whether to wait or take a risk to save on the final outlay. Under this technique, called Crystal Ball, there is a huge amount of historical information ready to be analysed. Through predictive algorithms and the analysis of patterns of behaviour that repeat over time, these systems are able to predict the future with a high degree of accuracy. Going a step further, the option to lock the ticket price prior to final booking is becoming available through the new FLYR platform. Amadeus has made a strong commitment to this. This ties in with another factor for the future of search and booking mechanisms. With the increasing autonomy of the airlines themselves and the direct relationship with the user without the strict need for agencies, GDSs may soon be out of the game. Hence the importance of agreements and investments such as that made by the European GDS and the aforementioned FLYR (8).

In short, the customer, increasingly since its smartphoneThe airline has at its disposal a privileged environment for searching and booking flights. If to this we add time and paper saving advantages such as the online check-in and the possibility of knowing not only the "where" and "how much" but also the "when" and the corresponding economic savings, the scenario is at least promising for the coming years. For their part, the companies involved in this framework, be they airlines, metasearch companies, OTAs or GDSs, must continue to make decisions increasingly close to information technologies in order to benefit from the large-scale symbiosis offered by this globalised environment.