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Airline seat inventory control method and apparatus for computerized airline reservation systems

  • US 5,255,184 A
  • Filed: 12/19/1990
  • Issued: 10/19/1993
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/19/1990
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An airline seat reservation system, comprising:

  • (a) a programmed computer;

    (b) data storage means, coupled to the programmed computer, for storing a database describing a flight network and seat reservation requests, the flight network comprised of a known seat capacity for each of a plurality of flight legs, a known demand distribution for each of a plurality of itinerary/fare classes, a known revenue yield for a seat reserved within each itinerary/fare class, and a booking limit for each itinerary/fare class;

    (c) the programmed computer including itinerary/fare class assignment means for processing the data base describing the flight network to assign seats in a flight leg to a plurality of itinerary/fare class combinations in at least one itinerary of the flight network, the assignment means comprising;

    (1) means for formulating a plurality of nonlinear equations representing a constrained optimization of an expected total revenue for the flight network and a plurality of Lagrange multipliers each representing an expected marginal seat revenue for an additional seat available on a flight leg;

    (2) means for refining an initial approximation of a solution to the nonlinear equations using a Newton-Raphson iteration to provide a globally optimal set of expected marginal seat revenues and booking limits;

    (d) reservation terminal means, operatively connected to the programmed computer, for entering a seat reservation request for a particular itinerary/fare class; and

    (e) the programmed computer including reservation means for receiving the seat reservation request from the reservation terminal means, for accepting or rejecting the seat reservation request in accordance with the globally optimal set of expected marginal seat revenues and booking limits, for recording the seat reservation request in the data storage means, and for transmitting an electronic status signal of the seat reservation request to the reservation terminal means.

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