Originally Posted by
jackal
Why must it be this way? I work with a very large database of customer information daily, and most changes populate immediately. Those that don't are subject to at most a one-hour delay (one system downloads into the other once an hour).
It doesn't HAVE to be this way. However, the airline reservations systems were built decades ago before the addition of frequent flyer programs, upgrades, etc. A reservation system has to be up 24/7 to process passenger reservations -- and I must say that SABRE does an excellent job overall.
Other airline systems such as frequent flyer tracking can be done as a SABRE add-on or in another system. In either case, the data is downloaded at most once a day and, then, the frequent flyer system must have time to process it.
Your customer database has probably been designed sometime since the late-90's. You're very fortunate to have real-time customer information. Unfortunately, the airlines systems are a bit more complicated, hamstrung by decades-old technology that continues to work almost flawlessly.