Old timer's question
Feb 4, 2012 | 12:36 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,438
Old timer's question
As I was walking through London today lamenting the disappearance of all those airline ticketing shops where you used to see those big planes in the windows, (which by the way put dreams in a boy's head that he wanted to see the world someday), I wondered how before the advent of computer systems did the airlines manage to keep track of inventory. I mean, when you went in to buy a ticket, how did the agencies know all of the schedules, manage to get you booked onto a flight that wasn't sold out, etc? I wouldn't think it could happen quickly or lead to a very flexible system when changes were needed.
Just wondering
Just wondering
Feb 4, 2012 | 1:01 pm
#2
In Memoriam
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Easton, CT, USA
Programs: ua prem exec, Former hilton diamond
Posts: 31,801
Before computers they called into a central reservations system and they looked it up for the travel agent.
This passage can describe it better than I could
To really understand the origins and development of the system we now call TPF we must take a trip back in time to circa 1940. We will visit a main ticket office of American Airlines in Little Rock, Arkansas, a growing company with growing ambitions. Here the basic control of flight reservation was a large card index file around which eight or so clerks would sort through the cards for the flight being requested.
They each knew the number of seats for the type of aircraft being used and by counting tally marks on the flight card they could tell if any seats were left and give you your yes or no on a reservation over the telephone. If your reservation was being made through another office it might take 2 or 3 hours to reach the revolving card index via a teletypewriter network and clerical personnel.
Insome of the medium-sized offices it was necessary to use binoculars to view critical information posted on large availability status boards in the ticket agents area. The absence of a red tag indicated that at least one seat was available on that flight. If more than one seat was needed a phone call to the back room might give you the availability which was again kept on three-by- five index cards according to flight number. Quite a system! Air travel was growing and it was obvious that this type of manual system was not going to be able to handle the business!
from http://www.ambriana.com/IT201_website/TPF_history.pdf
It also goes on with a story about how the SABER system was born
This passage can describe it better than I could
To really understand the origins and development of the system we now call TPF we must take a trip back in time to circa 1940. We will visit a main ticket office of American Airlines in Little Rock, Arkansas, a growing company with growing ambitions. Here the basic control of flight reservation was a large card index file around which eight or so clerks would sort through the cards for the flight being requested.
They each knew the number of seats for the type of aircraft being used and by counting tally marks on the flight card they could tell if any seats were left and give you your yes or no on a reservation over the telephone. If your reservation was being made through another office it might take 2 or 3 hours to reach the revolving card index via a teletypewriter network and clerical personnel.
Insome of the medium-sized offices it was necessary to use binoculars to view critical information posted on large availability status boards in the ticket agents area. The absence of a red tag indicated that at least one seat was available on that flight. If more than one seat was needed a phone call to the back room might give you the availability which was again kept on three-by- five index cards according to flight number. Quite a system! Air travel was growing and it was obvious that this type of manual system was not going to be able to handle the business!
from http://www.ambriana.com/IT201_website/TPF_history.pdf
It also goes on with a story about how the SABER system was born
Feb 4, 2012 | 3:28 pm
#3
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
Programs: BA
Posts: 8,772
I have to tell you there are still a few airline city ticket offices left in London. Only recently did Iran Air close up in Piccadilly (the aircraft models are still in the window), and just next door Aeroflot carries on.
http://maps.google.com/?ll=51.507424...325.31,,0,2.54
Korean is still around as well, and there must be some more.
Now, to the main question. Within an area with good telephone communications, like the US example given above, there could be a central office (they often had several regional ones) that agents could telephone, where there were some real examples of business systems ingenuity from the pre-computer days, with vast card index systems managed by operators who took the calls and filled in reservation cards in special filing units, customised to be within arms reach.
The USA had toll-free numbers at an early stage, but they were not common elsewhere so it was preferable to use Telex, getting a response maybe an hour later. It was more straightforward then; fares were known, being read from printed manuals issued for the season, and few flights filled up well in advance.
For bookings on airlines from overseas, a concept called "Freesale" was used, which basically said any agent could sell a ticket and then just advise it by Telex retrospectively. There would be an overnight confirmation, or occasionally a denial if it was full, but this was sufficiently infrequent in days of sub-50% average loads that it was an acceptable way to work.
For international airlines they would generally divide up the seats for each flight between different sales offices. Thus BOAC doing London-Sydney with maybe six stops along the way would initially allocate seats in varying proportions depending on their experience to their various offices, so Singapore would get say 20 eastbound seats to sell, maybe even a few to off-line places like New York. Each day this was reassessed for each flight in the light of everyone's bookings, and the numbers went up and down and were Telexed round to everyone. There's a poster over on PPRuNe who used to do these calculations for BOAC's commercial department in the 1960s.
There were no (well, few) computers, but plenty of ingenuity in the office.
http://maps.google.com/?ll=51.507424...325.31,,0,2.54
Korean is still around as well, and there must be some more.
Now, to the main question. Within an area with good telephone communications, like the US example given above, there could be a central office (they often had several regional ones) that agents could telephone, where there were some real examples of business systems ingenuity from the pre-computer days, with vast card index systems managed by operators who took the calls and filled in reservation cards in special filing units, customised to be within arms reach.
The USA had toll-free numbers at an early stage, but they were not common elsewhere so it was preferable to use Telex, getting a response maybe an hour later. It was more straightforward then; fares were known, being read from printed manuals issued for the season, and few flights filled up well in advance.
For bookings on airlines from overseas, a concept called "Freesale" was used, which basically said any agent could sell a ticket and then just advise it by Telex retrospectively. There would be an overnight confirmation, or occasionally a denial if it was full, but this was sufficiently infrequent in days of sub-50% average loads that it was an acceptable way to work.
For international airlines they would generally divide up the seats for each flight between different sales offices. Thus BOAC doing London-Sydney with maybe six stops along the way would initially allocate seats in varying proportions depending on their experience to their various offices, so Singapore would get say 20 eastbound seats to sell, maybe even a few to off-line places like New York. Each day this was reassessed for each flight in the light of everyone's bookings, and the numbers went up and down and were Telexed round to everyone. There's a poster over on PPRuNe who used to do these calculations for BOAC's commercial department in the 1960s.
There were no (well, few) computers, but plenty of ingenuity in the office.
Feb 5, 2012 | 2:42 am
#4
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,438
Great info! I'm amazed that they were able to keep all that straight, but then again I guess it was a different world back then, and maybe you didn't buy a ticket unless you had semi-seriously committed to the journey. I also had no idea that the introduction of computer systems went so far back.