Goals
- Develop a web based booking & reservation portal for chartered flights & limousine
- Develop a dynamic rule engine for booking cancellation
- Develop a common portal for Agents, Passengers & Airline staff
- Provide ability for passengers to track for lost baggage online
- Provide ability for the airline to publish offers & discounts
- Develop booking & cancellation reports to help for forecasting
Results
- Passengers & Agents are able to book tickets online without any hassles
- Payments & Refunds through payment gateway ensured minimized revenue leakage
- Operational costs for reservation follow ups were reduced with automated payment alerts
- Publishing offers & discounts helped to increase the business & revenue
- Reports helped management to track the business anytime & anywhere
Approach
- Developed a dynamic rules engine to accept the changes in the rules dynamically from the front end
- Developed an easy booking & reservation interface for agents & passengers
- Developed a desktop application for bookings for airline staff & sync with central server
- Automated alerts for payments, delivery for lost baggage’s
Manual process of booking & reservation involved passengers or agents calling the airline support number and offline payment either though cheque or bank deposit. Once the reservation is confirmed support staff had to follow up for payments. Cancellation & Refunds for tickets involved complex business rules leading to manual errors and revenue loss. Information of go-show tickets booked at the airport was emailed to the central office. Go-show tickets information were many times lost leading to inaccurate reports to the management and revenue loss.
Also with the business expanding it was difficult to manage the passenger demands with the manual process. Inaccurate reports were sent to the management.
Solution
We conducted extensive study on manual process of reservation and booking process and developed user interface prototype for the application.
Web based application was developed for Passenger and Agents for reservation and booking of tickets. Limited internet connectivity was a challenge for the airline staff in the office. Desktop based software for booking and reservation helped the airline staff to capture the bookings and sync to the central database when the internet is back. Multiple payment gateway was integrated to support multiple currency, cards and online banking.
Business rule engine was developed to handle the complex rules behind cancellation & refund for bookings. Rule engine was designed to accept the business changes dynamically from the front end and publish as required.
Scheduler was developed to send alerts to the primary contact person for payments 7 days before the departure date. Alerts were also sent to the agents at regular intervals for payments and offers. Application was integrated with email gateway to send out promotional offers to frequent travelers.
Online booking & reservation portal ensured better experience for passengers increasing the brand value. Portal also served as a single platform for passengers, agents and airline staff.
Booking, Cancellation & Refund reports were developed for easy accounting and reconciliation. As on date reports enabled management and sales to take better decision and create promotional offers and publish when required. Solution also opened up multiple channels for other integrations & services such as limousine, hotel booking and others.