I'm sorry, but that's not very helpful.

If I'm in JNB and want to go to BUQ. I enter the details in EF and I get offered only one alternative, the SA flight. Nothing is mentioned that Air Zimbabwe is flying a direct flight 2.20pm.

Nothing is mentioned that I could take a flight to HRE and connect to BUQ.

Is this a glitch in EF?

I don't see a glitch. I chose a few dates, and I can see the UM flights. Either JNB>VFA>BUQ, or JNB>HRE>BUQ...

Ok, try Friday May 20, JNB-BUQ. How many flights will EF display? Does it display the 2.20pm flight with Air Zimbabwe?

Yes, I see the 2:20pm JNB-BUQ flight, arriving @ 4:35pm on Friday, May 20th.

When you search for flights, make sure you enter UM as the airline.

Ok, fair enough FriendlySkies ^

But the obvious question now is WHY? Why do I have to specify an airline?

I want to know how I can get from A to B. I want to know all flights that can take me to B. Why must I know that there's an airline with the code UM to see their flights?

I only found the Air Zim flights by googling and asking friends. I trusted that EF would list all available flights if I said from where, and to where.

So why must I know airline codes to search for flights between two cities?

That is a question for ExpertFlyer to answer. I just wanted to let you know that there was availability.. Hope you find an answer!

Thanks FriendlySkies ^

I realise that this is a somewhat complicated question. Looking at "normal" web sites selling tickets, Air Zim is not available. Not surprising really as Zimbabwe is a bit of a mess right now.

Nevertheless, Air Zim has a daily flight from JNB to BUQ and it's not listed on EF, unless you specify the airline code.

No, no glitch, this is the only way to apparently get the schedule information as UM hasn't properly loaded their schedules into all GDSs. Our primary GDS doesn't have the UM schedule information that far in advance, however another one we have access to does. As such, we can choose to access UM Flight Availability from a different GDS then normal, however to do that you have to specify UM as the airline so the system knows what you're looking for so it can choose the correct GDS automatically.

When UM properly loads their availability/schedules into all GDSs, then it will show up when no airline or more then one airline is specified.

There you go. We have engineered EF to work around such issues where possible.

Thanks for the detailed answer ^

However, as a traveller I don't know what a GDS is. All I know is that I want to retrieve a list of available flights between point A and B.

As I see it, EF is able to give me the answer if I can provide the specific airline code. This is where I think EF can be improved, the information is there. I shouldn't have to provide an airline code. EF should understand that I want to go from A to B and give me a list of flights.

I don't care if it retrieves the data from GDS 1 or GDS 2.

A GDS is the global reservation system system that airlines and travel agents use to book and manage tickets for air/car/hotels etc.

I understand that you don't want to have to specify the airline, but until UM corrects the problem on their end, unfortunately you do, and there is nothing to improve or fix on our end that will make that happen. We can't show what we aren't given from the result of a request.

You said yourself "Looking at "normal" web sites selling tickets, Air Zim is not available." Well, that's something they need to fix, we can't fix it for them. It's a problem that they need to fix on their end that is causing both issues. You should express your displeasure with UM directly.

Ok, fair enough, but the fact is that EF can retrieve the information if I know the airline code. So the information is indeed available.

I'm not a programmer but in my simple mind, it should be possible to search flights departing JNB and arriving BUQ without the need for a customer to specify an airline code. I don't mind if it searches multiple GDS. I only know that I can get the info if I provide a specific airline code, this shouldn't be necessary.

I do understand that it must be almost an impossible task to cover 100% of the many thousands of airlines out there, especially when it comes to countries in turmoil. But in this case, it seems to be possible.

When they fix the problems on their end, it will be. Yes the information is indeed available, and we're giving you a way to see it that other websites cannot, this is a good thing. This is not simple, getting airline data is very complicated even when everything is working as it should.

This is just EF minimizing their costs. They could fix this. It would be relatively simple: they just need to query all GDSes instead of just their primary one. Of course, running queries on several GDSes does increase the cost, although GDS searches are typically a tiny cost (less than a cent per transaction, as I recall). EF is going to tell you that it's too expensive to do this, and while I have to kind of at that, I at least do understand it and probably would be willing to pay a touch more for a "pro" option that does things like this.

The alternative would be for them to script their GDS retrieval engine to search GDS #2 when a certain query is put in (like a flight from JNB to BUQ). This is certainly feasible, too, but it would require EF's staff to more actively monitor the state of airline affairs and know where to put these custom tweaks in. They'll probably tell you they can't afford to do that, either.

I appreciate your opinion jackal, however you are incorrect. We did fix this. This isn't a case of us trying to minimize costs (about which your guess is inaccurate, btw), it's a case of us trying not to chase our tails and spend limited development resources on something that we have already engineered a work around for on our end that solves these types of issues. Sure, putting in some special rule for JNB-BUQ might sound like an easy fix, but this problem happens to not be city pair specific, it's airline specific. The problem happens on other UM city pairs as well because they just didn't load long term flight schedules into our primary GDS. They will eventually fix the issue, and it will be solved properly. In the mean time, since this is an airline level issue, we have a system in place that allows us to choose a different GDS for that airline when the user specifies what airline they are looking for, allowing the user to get the data they want.

This isn't new, btw, we've had this functionality, and have used it and are still using it for multiple airlines, automatically, for years. It's what allows us to get more accurate data then would otherwise be possible then with the defaults.

If you don't believe me and want multiple examples of how we've had to engineer work around after work around in EF to deal with GDS and/or airline data issues over the years, feel free to PM me.

Dear EF, you seem to have missed this one. This is not by all means a priority for me, I just want to be sure you have all information on the potential 'work to do' areas.