The Flight Booking Software Evolution Revolution

[Glenn Dean]

The flight reservation system has been around for decades, started many years ago by the major airlines in an effort to automate bookings as their flight networks and number of bookings grew at an amazing pace. Initially these internal systems were used by airline reservation staff to confirm bookings across their vast flight networks, but it was not long before the airlines began offering Travel Agents their own version of these systems. Today's online air booking engines are a result of years of technological evolution and have helped lead the online revolution in selling travel. Today's online booking engines can provide the tools for any size agency's website to compete with even the major online players.

There are a countless number of online travel solutions available in the market today and choosing the right air booking engine for your travel business can be critical decision. You need to identify what type of travel and how your clients prefer to book and decide what content you'll need access to.

You'll also need to consider any alliances or preferred relationships you have with suppliers or other travel agents. Over the years, many travel agencies have been forced to consolidate with another agency or form a closer working relationship with other individual agencies or large Consortia. The ability to expand distribution of an agency's airfares to affiliated agencies quickly and easily is an important tool for many air consolidators in the market today. Most agency owners still want to maintain their own unique company brand with their customers however, so the ability to easily expand the access of your flight reservation system to affiliated agencies while maintaining their individual brand identity can be crucial.

With so many airfares and so many agencies forming alliances, the ability for flight booking software to simultaneously search multiple content sources for the best airfare is a critical advantage for many. In today's competitive market, agency owners need the flexibility to control a products selling price and maintain their competitive edge. Today's travel agency flight reservation system sallow for the selling price to be adjusted based on a wide range of criteria including travel or booking dates, supplier or class of service booked and even based on the distribution channel that the booking is made.

Applications have even kept pace with the consumer trend to use mobile devices to research and book airline tickets. There are Air Mobile Apps available for those travel agencies looking for a dedicated app for their individual agency brand. For those who are simply looking to make their website and associated online booking tools “mobile friendly”, there is flight booking software available that can automatically adjust the screen size and layout of an air booking engine based on the type of device being used.

The time you invest in identifying your product requirements and researching the different options available to you will be time well spent. With technology advancing as quickly as it is, maybe it is time to consider whether your travel technology needs to join the travel booking software evolution revolution.

In this article author writes about Odysseus Solutions. Today's travel agency Flight Reservation System allow for the selling price to be adjusted based on a wide range of criteria including travel or booking dates, supplier or class of service booked.