METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING AVAILABILITY OF AIRLINE SEATS

• US 20080312977A1
• Filed: 08/20/2008
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ITA Software, Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Galperin, Gregory R., DeMarcken, Carl G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,560,356 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

A computer program product, method and system for producing seat availability information for a mode of travel such as airline travel produce a prediction of availability of a seat in accordance with an availability query. The prediction is used in place of making an actual query to an airline or other travel mode availability system.

Claims

1-27. -27. (canceled)

28. A computer implemented method of providing a seat availability prediction in response to a seat availability query, the method comprises:

accessing a data structure stored in memory of a computer system, the data structure having seat availability answer entries indexed according to a set of seat availability query factors derived from past seat availability queries; and

retrieving a stored data entry as a seat availability answer for a seat availability query made to the computer.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the data structure is a table stored in memory with dimensions of the table corresponding to the indexes of seat availability query factors.

30. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

receiving the seat availability query, the seat availability query including one or more fields that specify at least one of points of travel, dates of travel, times of travel, class of travel, or booking code.

31. The method of claim 28 wherein the seat availability query has a field for airline and the seat availability query factors include one or more query factors for airline, booking code and days-before-departure.

32. The method of claim 28 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a yes/no value.

33. The method of claim 28 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a number of available seats on a specified flight.

34. The method of claim 28 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a number of available seats according to booking code.

35. The method of claim 28 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a probability of seat availability.

36. The method of claim 28 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a qualitative measure of seat availability.

37. The method of claim 29 wherein the table is a three-dimensional table stored in computer memory, wherein dimensions of the table correspond to time that specifies days or hours before departure, airlines and booking codes.

38. The method of claim 29 wherein seat availability entries in the table are determined from historical information related to how often booking codes were available for previous availability queries for combinations of airline/booking-code/and days-before-departure.

39. The method of claim 29 wherein seat availability entries in the table are probability estimates and the seat availability entries are associated with confidence factors that are related to the number of actual seat availability queries that were used to arrive at the probability estimates.

40. A computer program product residing on a computer readable medium for providing a seat availability prediction of seat availability in response to a seat availability query, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a computer to:

access a data structure stored in a memory of a computer system, the data structure comprising seat availability data entries indexed according to a set of seat availability query factors derived from previously posed seat availability queries, with the seat availability answers derived from the previously posed seat availability queries; and

retrieve a stored data entry as an seat availability answer for a seat availability query.

41. The computer program product of claim 40, further comprising instructions to:

receive the seat availability query, the seat availability query including one or more fields that specify at least one of points of travel, dates of travel, times of travel, class of travel, or booking code

42. The computer program product of claim 40, further comprising instructions to:

receive the seat availability query, the seat availability query having a field for airline and the query factors include one or more query factors for airline, booking code and days-before-departure.

43. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a yes/no value.

44. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a number of available seats.

45. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a number of available seats according to booking code.

46. The computer program product of claim 40 at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a probability of seat availability.

47. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a qualitative measure of seat availability.

48. The computer program product of claim 40 wherein the data structure is a three-dimensional table stored in computer memory, with dimensions of the table corresponding to time that specifies days or hours before departure, airlines and booking codes.

49. The computer program product of claim 48 wherein seat availability entries in the table are determined from historical information related to how often booking codes were available for previous seat availability queries for combinations of airline/booking-code/and days-before-departure.

50. The computer program product of claim 48 wherein seat availability entries in the table are probability estimates and the seat availability entries are associated with confidence factors that are related to the number of actual seat availability queries that were used to arrive at the probability estimates.

51. The computer program product of claim 50 comprises instructions to:

return the confidence factor with the probability estimate of seat availability.

52. The computer program product of claim 40, further comprising instructions to:

populate the data structure with historical information about how often booking codes were available for an airline/booking-code/days-before-departure combination.

54. The computer of claim 51 wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions to:

receive the seat availability query, the seat availability query having a field for airline and the query factors include one or more query factors for airline, booking code and days-before-departure.

55. The computer of claim 51 wherein the data structure is a three-dimensional table stored in computer memory, with dimensions of the table corresponding to time that specifies days or hours before departure, airlines and booking codes.

53. A computer system for providing a predicted answer in response to a seat availability query from a user, the computer system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable medium storing a computer program product comprising instructions for causing the computer to;

access a data structure stored in a memory of a computer system, the data structure comprising data entries arranged according to a set of seat availability query factors derived from past seat availability queries made to an airline'"'"'s availability system, with dimensions of the table corresponding to at least one of the set of seat availability query factors; and

retrieve a stored data entry as an seat availability answer corresponding to a seat availability query.

56. The computer of claim 53 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers corresponds to a yes/no value.

57. The computer of claim 53 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers corresponds to a number of available seats.

58. The computer of claim 53 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a number of available seats according to booking code.

59. The computer of claim 53 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a probability of seat availability.

60. The computer of claim 53 wherein at least some of the seat availability answers correspond to a qualitative measure of seat availability.

61. The computer of claim 53 wherein the data structure is a three-dimensional table stored in computer memory, with dimensions of the table corresponding to time that specifies days or hours before departure, airlines and booking codes.

62. The computer of claim 61 wherein the data entries are seat availability entries determined from historical information related to how often booking codes were available for previous seat availability queries for combinations of airline/booking-code/and days-before-departure.

63. The computer of claim 61 wherein the data entries are seat availability entries and as probability estimates, and the seat availability entries are associated with confidence factors that are related to the number of actual seat availability queries that were used to arrive at the probability estimates.

64. The computer of claim 61 wherein the computer program product further comprises instructions to:

return the confidence factor with the probability estimate of seat availability.