Book Your Cheapest Flights Ticket

When a person books a flight, it takes less than 15 minutes from the time they begin filling out the search form to the time they receive a booking confirmation in their inbox. The airline must go through a sequence of actions and systems to issue a ticket and confirm that the correct individual boards the plane. The cheap flights ticket booking pipeline is described in this article, along with the essential processes that support it.

Steps of Airline Booking Process

Let’s take a closer look at what happens between the time you make a reservation on a travel site and the time you pick up your luggage at the destination airport. The contact between the traveler and the airline can be broken down into five major steps:

Flight search,

Flight booking,

Ancillary booking,

Payment processing,

Ticketing,

Check-in and boarding,

Luggage management and reclamation

Flight search

A passenger can now book a flight directly on an airline’s website or through indirect channels such as online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, or Priceline, or meta search engines such as Kayak or Skyscanner. Depending on the sort of retailer, the search procedure will be different in terms of technology and results.

Via airline website.

You can book ticket on the website without going via the GDS by sending a search request directly to the airline’s CRS, which then presents the user with a list of available flights.

Via OTAs.

GDSs, air consolidators, which negotiate bulk or net pricing with carriers and then resell them to travel distributors, and partner airlines provide flight information to online travel agents.

Via metasearch engines.

Metasearch engines comb through offerings from several OTAs, full-service carriers, and low-cost carriers (LCCs) that don’t use GDSs to distribute their inventory. As a result, guests will have access to the broadest choice of flight options accessible.

Flight booking

When it comes to searching, OTAs and metasearch engines are favored, but when it comes to book ticket flights, the majority of travelers use airline websites. This is because of:

First, when purchasing seats directly from the airline, it will be easier to make adjustments to the reservation or cancel the flight, even from a technological standpoint. Second, travelers have access to a wider range of ancillaries than is generally available through OTAs.

The airline CRS must examine if the flight product in question is still available for reservation, regardless of the source of booking. The status code HK (“holding confirmed”) is then sent to the travel vendor. The alternative response is UN, which indicates that the carrier is unable to comply with the request

Ancillary booking

Ancillary revenue continues to be a significant source of revenue for airlines, particularly low-cost carriers. Seat selection, excess baggage, extra legroom, and in-flight meals are among the extra services available.

Typically, ancillaries are selected during the flight reservation process. Extras can be added later if you purchase your flight directly from the airline. Passengers can use the PNR number to access their reservations on the carrier’s website and make modifications.

Payment processing

The desire to fly must finally be backed up with financial resources. To put it another way, Cheap air flights book now airline ticket sales travelers must pay the ticket for a seat plus taxes and ancillaries (if any.)

Payment gateways — third-party services that not only handle transactions but also assure data security — can be used to conduct financial transactions between passengers and low-cost carriers. Things grow significantly more complicated when full-service carriers, GDSs, and OTAs are involved. Money must pass through IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) or its US analog, Airline Reporting Corporation, in this situation (ARC.)

The traveler will receive an email with a flight itinerary and PNR number once the payment has been confirmed. That’s all it takes to check flight status, cancel a trip, or, in the event of a direct booking, change and add ancillaries to a future voyage. People, on the other hand, require tickets to board the plane.

Ticketing

Ticketing and reservation are two distinct processes. A booking only guarantees a seat on the plane. The term “ticketing” refers to the payment of a seat and the passenger’s right to use it throughout the trip. Even if a traveler pays for the trip immediately, as most OTAs and LCCs require, there is a time lag between these processes. Verifying payment details and completing money transmission can take up to three business days.

In any situation, the traveler receives an e-ticket containing the passenger’s name and PNR number. If the booking cannot be booked for any reason, the travel provider must either offer an alternate cheap flight tickets or issue a full refund

Check-in and boarding

We’re talking about the airline’s departure control system or DCS. This PSS module communicates with the CRS as well as airport devices such as self-check-in kiosks, airport agent software, baggage drop, and even immigration control. All check-in and boarding operations are handled by the DCS, which begins with ticket validation. This system is also in charge of customs clearance, border security reservations, aircraft weight optimization, and cargo handling.

During check-in, a passenger must enter their PNR and name so that the system can match them to those in the CRS and assign a seat to them. The technique varies slightly depending on whether you’re doing it online or offline.

Online check-in

Normally, online check-in is available 48 hours ahead of departure, however, this varies by airline. A traveler enters information from an e-ticket on an airline website or app to gain access to an aircraft seat map, which allows them to select a specific seat. If a user does not specify one, the system selects one at random and generates an electronic boarding pass.

Airport check-in

In this scenario, a passenger presents an e-ticket to the airport agent at the check-in counter so that the details may be entered and a seat on a seat map can be reserved.

The departure control system generates a boarding pass after check-in, allowing passengers to board the plane. It can either be printed or downloaded to a mobile phone. The document includes a QR code that serves as a one-of-a-kind connection to the traveler’s flight details. A QR code is scanned as the passenger walks to the plane, and the PNR status changes from “checked-in” to “boarded” to “flown.”

luggage management and reclamation

A plane has landed at its destination, and it appears that the adventure is over — unless a passenger’s luggage is lost. To prevent this, the airline’s DCS creates and prints bag tags with ten-digit numeric codes, which are also known as barcodes. The baggage handling system at the airport scans these barcodes to sort and trace the luggage before it is delivered to you.

 

Top Domestic Flight Deals


Top International Flights


Blog Post


✆ Call Now: +1-800-201-4576