Improving airlines' real-time, online reservation systems

Abstract

The use of online Airline Reservation Systems in these last years has lead to an increase demand for customer satisfaction and loyalty which would then enable the airline to remain competitive. State of the art technology advancement in this area is vital in order to make online booking systems more user-friendly and customer oriented especially nowadays with the notion of low cost airlines and other external forces in the industry. It is clear from this study that not all the airlines realise the difference between a common website and an ideal one. [ 4] In order to achieve my aims and objectives, the following procedures were incorporated. Firstly, information was gathered by making use of a survey and a set of fifteen questionnaires, to formulate a better picture as to what customers expect from such systems. Apart from that existing frameworks were considered as the foundation on which to build up my improved airline reservation system. The airline website was developed using the .NET technology, specifically the ASP.NET for the front-end of the system. C# was then used for the handling of logic aspects of the site. Additionally, the database tables were stored in Sequel Server 2008 RS. This research evaluates some of the most leading airline websites in the industry. The aim is to propose and design an improved airline reservation website following certain specified criteria which encourages more users to make use of the new e-commerce phenomenon and rendering more money to the company. The final result is aimed at providing passengers with an inbuilt, user friendly interface and additional features to cater for their needs. Finally, the online booking system is geared at integrating travellers from all sectors of society. This is setup to manifest the benefit of e-commerce to both passengers using conventional methods and also those technological oriented individuals. conventional methods and also those technological oriented individuals.