Over the years, the airlines’ industry has progressed tremendously along with the advance of

technology that made flying, purchasing, and/or reservation more suitable for customers. The aircraft

purchase software system or airline reservation system is a web-based booking solution constructed by

organizations such as Frontier, Spirit, United, American Airlines, and other airline companies to

consolidate data, navigate and customize in ways that are friendly-user for the customer to steer. Each

airline company uses a different computer reservation system (CRS) or Global Distribution System

(GDS) software systems to distribute flight availability on its’ own website or through travel agencies,

make reservations on selected dates and times, make seat selection and baggage when check-in online or

at the kiosk, and store data into the database. It all started from the Airline Booking System (ABS) and

evolved to the Computer Reservation System (CRS) of today. With the integration of the Airline booking

system, the Global Distribution System (GDS) distribute flight availability through online travel agency

and airlines’ website through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs), which makes it easier

for the customer when searching for flight schedules, hotel rental, car rental, tour packages, and other

bundles.

American Airlines uses the Sabre system to manage reservations for indirect sales, fare

collection, airline inventory, and customers who are purchasing through third-party such as travel

agencies. United Airlines uses the PARS/SHARES BY EDS and Travelport Global Distribution System

which include Apollo to navigate their reservation/purchase system. Both Spirit Airline and Frontier

Airlines use the Navitaire software system to manage reservations and other functions. The Travelport,

SABRE, Amadeus, and Navitaire software systems are well-known Global Distribution System with the

integration of Passenger Name Record (PNR) in the Airline Reservation System or Airline Booking

System that are suitable to customers and used by major airlines to manage reservation and transactions

between the travel industry and customers. The point of this is to accurately deliver flight information to

consumers and travel agencies.

 The airline purchasing system or reservation system shared similar features including booking,

managing reservations such as inventory such as seat availability and baggage fees, schedule time and

date, flight fares, purchase of the ticket, generating passenger name records, ticketing, and other airline-

reservation related features. American Airlines is one of the major airlines that use SABRE software

systems that was established in 1964 and continues to grow with new software and technology to power

the global travel industry and be more suitable and efficient for customers when managing online airline

reservations. The Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment (SABRE) platform and distribute to

all travel agencies or airline websites using its own programming interface or APIs to manage

reservations system allow the customer the option to register, log in, or continues as a guest before

proceeding which include searching flight schedule, check-in online and boarding process, airport check-

in kiosk, luggage check-in, crew flight scheduling system, and airport terminal. SABRE is like an all-in-

one package that makes flying more manageable and flexible for airline companies and customers to

choose the flight, knowing that their spot is secure and arriving at their destination on time. With the

integration of NDC, the systems are able to deliver a much faster transaction, better loyalty program

solution, pricing, and revenues reports to the company.

The major functions of American Airlines that customers can perform such as search flight

schedule time and date, round-trip or one-way selection, depart and/or return city, seating class (basic

economy, economy, business, or first-class), baggage options, bundles option, seat selection, and

passenger information. The process is simple and divided into three sections: input, process, and output.

This will provide a better understanding and ability to see the full force of what the Sabre system has to

offer to the customer.

The input used of the airline reservation system comprises customer searching online or through

travel agencies. When a customer browses through the internet, the first thing customer sees is the

homepage with promotion, three tabs (Plan Travel, Travel Information, AAdvantage) and two buttons on

the right side of the page (Log in and Join) and the Book a flight section where the customer will see the
Manage trips/Check-in and Flight Status tabs. The American Airlines application on the mobile device

will take custom rights to the Book a flight page. In the Book section, customers have the option to

choose Flight only or Vacation packages. From there, customers choose either Round Trip or One Way

and then input in the city they will be flying from to the destination city. In general, customers select the

type of flight such as booking with miles, regular flight, or vacation package that include hotel reservation

and car rental. With the SABRE system, the schedule can be viewed up to 11 months ahead. With regular

flights, customers will choose the flight schedule that fits them and then enter their personal information

as a record in the database.

The process of the systems is generating passenger number records including the loyalty program

to gain points when purchasing a flight, passenger information input in the system, payment, and flight

confirmation. Once the customer has selected the flight, they will enter in their information that matches

(name, date of birthday, gender, residence, and traveler number) and trip contact details. There is a

section where customers have the option to enter a promotion code or Business Extra for a special

discount. The Sabre system offers a way to sell customers available seats or skip and take whatever seat

the airline generates for them. A review page where customers double-check all the flight information

before making a payment for their fares. American Airlines gives the customer the option to hold their

desired flight for 24 hours. The Sabre system will generate a confirmation number with a flight itinerary

after all payment is finalized for customers to keep and use on the day of check-in. A membership

customer can access all records in their account including flight itinerary, make changes such as flight

changes or cancel the itinerary, manage points, customer’s profile, and settings such as notification and

account features.

The output is where customers will receive an email reminder to check-in prior to the flight.

Sabre software system offered multi-lingual at the kiosk to give customers ease to check-in at the airport.

Additionally, the customer can also check-in through a mobile device for an electronic ticket, online then

print out the boarding pass, at the kiosk or check-in counter if they have luggage to check-in as well. A
boarding pass will carry flight information including passenger name, gate number, seating zone,

assigned seat, boarding time, and flight time. The system will generate baggage claim numbers given to

customers at the airport check-in so that the customer can retrieve their luggage at the arrival airport.

Furthermore, the customer has the option to cancel their flight at the last minute, in which the Sabre

system will transmit the cancel message to the carrier to end the customer's flight.

American Airlines' partnership with Sabre global distribution systems presents the functions that

provide the support and comprehensive services to meet the Airline and customer’s needs since it is the

mainframe of the airline reservation system. The system displays various flight connections, flight

schedules, seat availability, baggage, and other travel-related functions. Additionally, the system provides

a multilingual system that gives customers comfortability to use if language becomes an issue. Table 1.1

illustrates the input, process, and output of the airline reservation system. The purpose of the table is to

give customers a better understanding of how airline reservation systems work when searching and

making a flight purchase.

Problems and Limitations of an Airline System (American Airlines)

The Reservation System serves a crucial role for any Airline, such as in the case of

American Airlines. With this type of system in place, airlines can minimize errors that might

manifest in cases whereby individuals rely on the manual system of making reservations from

time to time. An effective reservation system in place comes in handy in speeding up the

boarding process for different passengers. In as much as American Airlines has an existing

reservation system, we will focus on some of the limitations of the existing system.

After close scrutiny of the reservation system, it is inherently difficult to identify a

problem or a limitation when it comes to the airline reservation system. The system has included

some of the common features that most systems often fail to; these include; passengers’ inability
to print their physical boarding pass, which often becomes a challenge due to the fact that as

much as technology has taken over service deliveries, there are some customers who still find it

apt to present their physical boarding pass. Another plausible feature that the reservation system

has put in place is giving customers access to maintenance reports. However, from the system

layout, there is no indication of what reports the passengers are given access to, and it is

important to ensure that the system offers an appropriate explanation of these reports as they are

important in the airline industry. One major issue with this in particular lies in the fact that there

are no notifications for passengers regarding any flight delays and, in some other cases, flight

cancellations (Blessing et al. 40). It is crucial that passengers are informed of any delays or flight

cancellations for greater convenience so that individuals can easily reschedule their plans for the

day.

In line with this, the system does not in any way allow the passengers to attain access to

the aircraft maintenance report. Attaining access to such reports goes a long way in helping ease

or reduce the fears associated with air travel and, in most instances, the disasters that individuals

might experience during their travel by air (Zhou et al. 6789). As such, the management team at

the airline must obtain valuable information from interviewing airline personnel, materials

acquired from the airline systems as well as any valuable information acquired from passengers.

The alterations will help improve the quality of service issued to different passengers, thus

enhancing the customer experience. In doing so, it would be much easier to retain existing

customers and at the same time attract new consumers to the establishment's products and

services. Doing so will help improve efficiency at the workplace to ensure improved

productivity.
Table 1.1: The Flight Booking Process
Input
● Search Flight (Online such
as website or application
or through travel agencies)
○ Time & Date
● Flight availability
● Booking Engine
○ Reserve Seat (Main
cabin or First-class)
○ Additional (optional)
Selection: (Baggage,
extra leg-room, or in-
flight meals)
Process Output
● Loyalty Program
○ The option for ● Check-in/Boarding
customers to redeem ○ Check-in through the
their point or application, Airline’s
continues to website, or at the kiosk
accumulate more ○ Online check-in or
points/miles airport check-in at the
● Fares/Payment kiosk or check-in
○ Paying their flight fare counter
● Finalize ● Boarding Ticket
reservation/Confirmation ○ Electronically with Q-
○ The customer received code or printed
the booking boarding ticket at the
confirmation number airport
● Baggage Claim/tracking
○ If the customer is
flying with luggage, the
airport agent will
check the luggage and
give the passenger the
bagger claim number
to reclaim at the
arrival airport city.
Figure 1.0: Airline Reservation System Context Diagram
Figure 1.1: Airline Reservation System DFD Level-1
Figure 1.2: Airline Reservation System/Airline Purchase System E-R Diagram