Market-Level Inventory Control System and Method
First Claim
1. An automated system for use by a transportation carrier, comprising:
- a market group storage facility to store a market-based inventory describing space available within one or more market groups, each including selected space provided on selected physical routes of the transportation carrier; and
booking logic communicatively coupled to the market group storage facility to sell at least part of the selected space included in one of the market groups to customers without regard to which of the one or more physical routes will supply space that was sold.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for managing inventory on a market basis is disclosed. When employed by a transportation carrier, the system allows for the creation of a market group that includes a limited amount of space that is provided by any one or more of a certain group of physical routes (e.g., airline flights traveling between predetermined departure and destination points flying on selected dates). A qualifying customer or request may book one or more seats to this market group rather than to a specific physical route. The customer is guaranteed a seat on one of the physical routes, but is not informed as to the route on which travel will occur until a time closer to departure when the space allocated to the market group is mapped to the physical routes. In one embodiment, the market groups are defined using programmable business rules of a type interpreted by a rules engine.
27 Citations
10 Claims
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1. An automated system for use by a transportation carrier, comprising:
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a market group storage facility to store a market-based inventory describing space available within one or more market groups, each including selected space provided on selected physical routes of the transportation carrier; and booking logic communicatively coupled to the market group storage facility to sell at least part of the selected space included in one of the market groups to customers without regard to which of the one or more physical routes will supply space that was sold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computer-readable medium to cause a device to execute a method, comprising:
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maintaining a market-based inventory that describes one or more market groups, each market group including selected space on one or more selected routes provided by a transportation carrier; and selling to one or more customers at least a portion of the selected space included in one of the market groups without regard to which of the selected routes will provide the portion of the selected space. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10)
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Specification