Reservisor

Last updated
The 1952 Magnetronic Reservisor on display at the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum Magnetronic Reservisor.jpg
The 1952 Magnetronic Reservisor on display at the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum

Starting in 1946, American Airlines developed a number of automated airline booking systems known as Reservisor. Although somewhat successful, American's unhappiness with the Reservisor systems led them to develop the computerized Sabre system used to this day.

Contents

Before Reservisor

C. R. Smith became president of American Airlines in 1934 and set an aggressive expansion policy. When American Airlines had 85 planes in its fleet he stated "Any employee who can't see a day when we will have a thousand planes had better look for a job somewhere else." [1] Known as a hands-on manager, Smith pushed his vice presidents to drive out inefficiencies that might block their potential expansion.

Following Smith's lead, Marion Sadler, manager of customer support, and Bill Hogan, in charge of finance, concluded that the company was spending too much effort on keeping on top of accounting, and not enough on the problem of booking times. [1] They hired Charles Amman to study the problem. He broke the process down into three steps; finding if a seat was available, updating the seating inventory when they purchased a seat or canceled a booking, and finally recording the passenger data (name, address, etc.) after the sale. [1]

At the time, bookings were handled by a system known as "request and reply". Booking data for any particular flight, say Buffalo to Boston, would be handled by a single office. Here, each scheduled flight was represented by an index card known as a flight card. The offices were normally located at one of the airports involved, but were increasingly centralized at major airports or located at a telephone company switching office to ease the adding or removing of phone lines.

In order to book a ticket on a flight, a sales agent would call into the right booking office and request information on a particular flight. The booking agent would then walk over to a filing cabinet and retrieve the flight card. They would then return to the phone to tell the sales agent if there were any seats available. If there was an available seat, they simply checked off a box, informed the sales agent, and returned the card to the cabinet.

Problems occurred when the flights were close to full. In that case the booking agent would have to inform the sales agent that there were no seats, and the sales agent would then ask the customer if there were any other flights they might choose as an alternative. The booking agent would have to return to the cabinets each time to retrieve the flight cards; since there were many booking agents who might want to retrieve the cards, the agents couldn't take more than one at a time. During busy schedule periods, this process could stretch out the booking process indefinitely. [1]

Amman attacked this problem first. In 1939 he implemented a new system called "sell and report" that reduced the reporting needs by allowing any office to book seats without calling the central office until 75% of the seats were sold. [1] Each office had a board of future flights that consisted of a single hole representing a flight; when the flight reached 75% a large peg was inserted that the booking agents could see, sometimes using binoculars. Once the flight had been pegged, the agents reverted to the older centralized booking system. In an era where aircraft rarely flew with 75% of the seats filled, this system dramatically reduced the number of phone calls.

Although the "sell and report" system worked, it didn't solve the other problems that occurred when the flight had reached the 75% point. The problem of finding an alternate flight when the flight was filled also remained a major problem.

Reservisor

Amman suggested that an automated system for storing seat inventory be built, and in 1944 mocked up a system for a single flight and showed it to Smith. Smith was encouraged, and approved funding for building a real-world system. [2]

Amman approached a number of business machine vendors about building the system he referred to as the Reservisor, but most proved uninterested. It was not until he showed the mock-up to the Teleregister Company of Stamford, Connecticut that he found a partner willing to work on the system. Teleregister had started as part of Western Union, a division that sent stock market quotes across the country and presented them in "big board" form instead of a ticker. Their knowledge of remote signaling and electrical display made them a suitable partner for the Reservisor project.

The Reservisor was essentially an electromechanical version of the flight boards introduced for the "sell and report" system. The heart of the machine consisted of a large matrix with the rows representing the flights and the columns representing the next ten days. When a flight reached its limit, 75% at first but later increased, a relay was inserted into the board to short out the lines when they were energized.

Booking operators were equipped with terminals that looked like a smaller version of the control system, replacing the holes with lamps. They could query the flight status by selecting a flight and then energizing their board. Electricity flowed from their terminal through the selected flight, displaying the status for that flight for all ten days at once. The booking agent could then tell the sales agent the flight status without walking to the cabinet, as well as immediately offer alternatives if it was sold out. The flight card was only updated when the customer actually bought a seat.

The major advantage of this system over the older pegboard was that the signals could be operated remotely. This eliminated the need to have one very large room for bookings, and allowed the terminals to be installed remotely. The flight status could also easily be copied from machine to machine by installing a remote display at another booking office and then having operators copy the settings from one machine to the other. [3]

The Reservisor was installed in American's Boston reservation office in February 1946. After a one-year trial, they found that the office was handling 200 more passengers a day, with 20 fewer operators. [2] One downside was that the electrical relay contacts would get dirty and required constant cleaning. And although it did help solve the availability issues, this made the rest of the booking task - collecting passenger information and recording the sale - that much more of a problem that needed to be solved.

Magnetronic Reservisor

Encouraged by the Reservisor, but ultimately unhappy with the advantages it offered, Amman started examining a much more advanced system that handled not only the availability issues, but the actual seat inventory as well. At about this time, Howard Aiken had started work with the highly publicized Harvard Mark III computer, which used a drum memory for storage. American and Teleregister decided to make a drum-based system that allowed direct manipulation of the number of seats available.

Since the machine was now returning discrete information, instead of a simple on-off status, the terminals could no longer automatically display the overall status of a group of flights. Each flight had to be queried separately from the drum, and then light the lamp if it was filled. Amman spent a considerable amount of time studying the user interaction with the machine, trying to find an easy way for the operator to query the data for a group of flights. [1]

The trials included buttons, dials, rolls of paper tape, loops of 35 mm film and finally, the "destination plate". The plate consisted of a metal card with notches on the edge that engaged switches in the terminal, which energized lines back to the drum to retrieve information for all of the flights to that destination at once. A series of lights indicated which ones still had available seats. When a booking was made, a lever on the terminal subtracted one seat from the value stored on the drum, while another allowed it to be added back in the case of a cancellation. [1]

The resulting Magnetronic Reservisor was installed in American's La Guardia Airport booking office in 1952. The system was built with the ability to store information for up to 1,000 flights 10 days into the future, and took about 1.2 seconds per query. In 1956 a new version was installed at American's New York West Side Terminal with storage for 2,000 flights 31 days into the future, and improved access times to about half a second. The new system also recorded additional information every time a booking was made, including statistical information on the number of inquiries, bookings and cancellations on a per-operator and overall basis. To take full advantage of the new system, the entire office was re-arranged to include 362 telephone operators to interact directly with the public, 40 to handle travel agents and large business accounts, and another 140 to connect to other American ticket offices around the country. Calls averaged 45,000 a day, requiring a staff of 40 machine operators and supervisors. [4]

After installing the Magnetronic Reservisor, Teleregister produced a number of different versions for a variety of customers. [5] A number of customers bought Magnetronic Reservisor systems, including Braniff International Airways, National Airlines, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and New Haven Railroad. Modified versions, larger or smaller, were also sold as the United Airlines' "UNISEL", New York Central Railroad's "Centronic", and a variety of warehousing and hotel room availability systems.

Reserwriter

The Magnetronic Reservisor largely solved the booking and availability problems, but this left the issue of recording passenger information after the sale was made. Working with IBM, Amman built the Reserwriter, which allowed operators to type passenger information onto a punched card for storage. The card was then processed into a paper tape form, and read to the ticketing offices over American's existing teletype network to automatically print tickets with complete routing information. The tapes could then be forwarded for processing at remote sites, including the Magnetronic Reservisor in New York, allowing remote offices to directly book and cancel flights while recording passenger information at the same time. By 1958, Reserwriters had been installed at most of American's larger offices. [4]

SABRE

In spite of the successes with the Reservisor and Reserwriter, the system as a whole was highly dependent on manual input. It was prone to errors as a result, and about 8 percent of all bookings contained errors. To add to the confusion, the full process of booking a flight, even a single-leg, required the input of 12 different people and took as long as 3 hours in total.

As if this were not bad enough, in 1952 American had ordered 30 Boeing 707s, their first jets. These aircraft increased seating from about 80 on the existing Douglas DC-7 fleet to 112 on the new aircraft. Their speed was also much greater, allowing almost twice as many flights per aircraft per day. The result was that the aircraft could deliver passengers faster than their existing booking systems could sell tickets for them.

In 1953 C.R. Smith was on a flight from Los Angeles to New York when he struck up a conversation with another passenger and learned that he was also named Smith. The passenger was Blair Smith, an IBM sales executive. [6] C.R. arranged for Smith to visit the Magnetronic Reservisor office and suggest ways that IBM might be able to improve the system. Blair alerted IBM's president, Thomas Watson, Jr. that American would be interested in a major collaboration. IBM was at that time starting work on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system for the United States Air Force, which had a large number of features in common with a booking system; remote communications with "offices", real-time updating, interactive user terminals, and storage of large amounts of information.

Low-level exploratory work continued for some time before IBM was able to offer a formal development contract on 18 September 1957. Development of the Sabre system started, which many computer historians have suggested was one of the major milestones in the commercialization of computers. SABRE was not, however, the first computerized booking system; that honor goes to the little-known Trans-Canada Air Lines (today's Air Canada) system, ReserVec.

Related Research Articles

Royal Jordanian Airlines is the flag carrier of Jordan with its head office in the capital, Amman. The airline operates scheduled international services over four continents from its main base at Queen Alia International Airport, with over 500 flights per week and at least 110 daily departures. It joined the Oneworld airline alliance in 2007.

Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and operated by airlines, CRSs were later extended for use by travel agencies, and global distribution systems (GDSs) to book and sell tickets for multiple airlines. Most airlines have outsourced their CRSs to GDS companies, which also enable consumer access through Internet gateways.

Sabre Global Distribution System, owned by Sabre Corporation, is a travel reservation system used by travel agents and companies to search, price, book, and ticket travel services provided by airlines, hotels, car rental companies, rail providers and tour operators. Originally developed by American Airlines under CEO C.R. Smith with the assistance of IBM in 1960, the booking service became available for use by external travel agents in 1976 and became independent of the airline in March 2000.

A passenger name record (PNR) is a record in the database of a computer reservation system (CRS) that contains the itinerary for a passenger or a group of passengers travelling together. The concept of a PNR was first introduced by airlines that needed to exchange reservation information in case passengers required flights of multiple airlines to reach their destination ("interlining"). For this purpose, IATA and ATA have defined standards for interline messaging of PNR and other data through the "ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures - Passenger" (AIRIMP). There is no general industry standard for the layout and content of a PNR. In practice, each CRS or hosting system has its own proprietary standards, although common industry needs, including the need to map PNR data easily to AIRIMP messages, has resulted in many general similarities in data content and format between all of the major systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boarding pass</span> Document provided to an air-travel passenger functioning as a ticket.

A boarding pass or boarding card is a document provided by an airline during airport check-in, giving a passenger permission to enter the restricted area of an airport and to board the airplane for a particular flight. At a minimum, it identifies the passenger, the flight number, the date, and scheduled time for departure. A boarding pass may also indicate details of the perks a passenger is entitled to and is thus presented at the entrance of such facilities to show eligibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic ticket</span> Digital ticket

An electronic ticket is a method of ticket entry, processing, and marketing for companies in the airline, railways and other transport and entertainment industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ReserVec</span>

ReserVec was a computerized reservation system developed by Ferranti Canada for Trans-Canada Air Lines in the late 1950s. It appears to be the first such system ever developed, predating the more famous SABRE system in the United States by about two years. Although Ferranti had high hopes that the system would be used by other airlines, no further sales were forthcoming and development of the system ended. Major portions of the transistor-based circuit design were put to good use in the Ferranti-Packard 6000 computer, which would later go on to see major sales in Europe as the ICT 1904.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air charter</span> On-demand air transportation method

Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft as opposed to individual aircraft seats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Check-in</span> Announcement of an arrival

Check-in is the process whereby people announce their arrival at an office, hotel, airport, hospital, seaport or event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amadeus IT Group</span> Spanish travel technology company

Amadeus IT Group, S.A. is a major Spanish multinational technology company that provides software solutions for the global travel and tourism industry. It is the world's leading provider of travel technology that focus on developing software for airlines, hotels, travel agencies, and other travel-related businesses to enhance their operations and customer experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shere SMART</span>

The Shere SMART is a desktop-based railway ticket issuing system, developed by the Guildford-based company Shere Ltd, utilising Newbury Data ND4020 ticket printer, first introduced in Britain in 2003. Since the first trial installation of the system in the ticket office at London Bridge station, approximately 300 terminals have been installed at stations on the Southern and former Thameslink networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global distribution system</span> Type of computerised network system

A global distribution system (GDS) is a computerised network system owned or operated by a company that enables transactions between travel industry service providers, mainly airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and travel agencies. The GDS mainly uses real-time inventory from the service providers. Travel agencies traditionally relied on GDS for services, products and rates in order to provide travel-related services to the end consumers. Thus, a GDS can link services, rates and bookings consolidating products and services across all three travel sectors: i.e., airline reservations, hotel reservations, car rentals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Airport check-in</span> Process of being approved to board an airplane

Airport check-in is the process whereby an airline approves airplane passengers to board an airplane for a flight. Airlines typically use service counters found at airports for this process, and the check-in is normally handled by an airline itself or a handling agent working on behalf of an airline. Passengers usually hand over any baggage that they do not wish or are not allowed to carry in the aircraft's cabin and receive a boarding pass before they can proceed to board their aircraft.

Interlining, also known as interline ticketing and interline booking, is a voluntary commercial agreement between individual airlines to handle passengers traveling on itineraries that require multiple flights on multiple airlines. Such agreements allow passengers to change from one flight on one airline to another flight on another airline without having to gather their bags or check-in again. Airlines can also promise free rebooking if the connection is lost due to a delay.

Airline reservation systems (ARS) are systems that allow an airline to sell their inventory (seats). It contains information on schedules and fares and contains a database of reservations and of tickets issued. ARSs are part of passenger service systems (PSS), which are applications supporting the direct contact with the passenger.

Videcom International Limited is a United Kingdom travel technology company based in Henley-on-Thames. It designs, develops and provides modern computer reservations systems to airlines and the travel industry, specializing in the hosting and distribution of airline sales.

Galileo is a computer reservations system (CRS) owned by Travelport. As of 2000, it had a 26.4% share of worldwide CRS airline bookings. In addition to airline reservations, the Galileo CRS is also used to book train travel, cruises, car rental, and hotel rooms.

DAC-1, for Design Augmented by Computer, was one of the earliest graphical computer aided design systems. Developed by General Motors, IBM was brought in as a partner in 1960 and the two developed the system and released it to production in 1963. It was publicly unveiled at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in Detroit 1964. GM used the DAC system, continually modified, into the 1970s when it was succeeded by CADANCE.

Clarksons Travel Group was a pioneering package tour operator in the UK during the 1960s and early 1970s. Its founder, in 1959 as Clarksons Tours, a subsidiary of the long-established City firm of H. Clarkson shipbrokers, was Tom Gullick, a former flag lieutenant in the Royal Navy.

Evelyn Berezin was an American computer designer of the first computer-driven word processor. She also worked on computer-controlled systems for airline reservations.

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McKenney, pg. 100
  2. 1 2 McKenney, pg. 102
  3. Elmer, pg. 62
  4. 1 2 McKenney, pg. 104
  5. "Special Purpose Electronic Engineering... That Sets the Pace!", Teleregister Corporation, 1956
  6. "Oral history interview with R. Blair Smith", Charles Babbage Institute

Bibliography

  • James McKenney et al., "Waves of Change: Business Evolution Through Information Technology", Harvard Business Press, 1995, ISBN   0-87584-564-9
  • Greg Elmer, "Profiling Machines: Mapping the Personal Information Economy", MIT Press, 2004, ISBN   0-262-05073-0