What backend system does expedia/orbitz etc use?
 

I've booked some quasi-complex itineraries (maybe not by ft standards) in the past and noticed that i can only book/view them through certain engines (orbitz, cheaptickets) on the last one.

Just booked CGK-YHZ, YHZ-ITM, Expedia didn't put together the flights I wanted, and no airline could even process the origin/desitnation for any flights let alone the ones I wanted.

That said why do we need them? In my mind it works something like this I give the flight data I want to website -> it passes it along to some system -> it reports back to me.

What is this "system" and why can't I access it? Why are they special that they can but I can't? Why can airline agents book a complex route over the phone, but not over the web? What computer program are they using? What data base are they accessing? Again why can't I access it? Or even have it tied to the web? Me telling someone what I want, only to have them type verbatim what I want into a computer and then read the output back to me instead of me viewing it seems criminally inefficient. The whole process is likely slower for their being there.

I just booked a flight, there were two charges in my bank, One from Air Canada, $10.99 from Orbitz. This leads me to belive this is an AC fare. (makes sense as 4 longest flights are AC) But why couldn't I access it from the AC website? Why couldn't any other site find it? $10.99 isn't gonna kill me, and the fare was still by far the cheapest/best deal compared to alternitives, but what exactly am I paying Orbitz for? It grinds my gears that I spend 30+ hours researching departures/desitnation/scheduling to find a deal, yet I'm paying a website simply because AC can't see the flight that is supposidly theirs, and I don't even know that its an AC flight until after I book it.

As an IT person I can provide you one of many possible and likely reasons.

These systems are very complex and often use command line interfaces and require special training for the user. Mapping "normal" single destination and return to origin airport trips to the required backend computer system interface is often very complex. Mapping complex flight scenarios is infinitely more complex and often doesn't justify the development cost vs. the "relatively" small number of customers that can work with a reservations agent.

HTH.