SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SELECTING AND RESERVING AIRLINE SEATS

• US 20090083086A1
• Filed: 12/11/2008
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CEATS Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CEATS Incorporated
• Inventors: Halavais, Richard Arthur, Chung, Tony Cheng-Tong
• Granted Patent: US 7,548,870 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 20/401 Transaction verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 Hotels or restaurants

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method for selecting and reserving airline seats. The system or method transmits information relating to available seats on one or more airplanes traveling a flight segment of a trip to an application running on a general purpose computer for display to an end user. The system or method also provides one or more pages that include an interactive seating map showing information relating to the available seats on the one or more airplanes. Through the interactive seating map the end user can select one or more available seats. The interactive seating map may provide additional information on the one or more of available individual seats when triggered by, for example, a mouse placed over one of the available individual seats.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for interactively selecting tickets to seats on an airplane by an end user over a wide area network, the method comprising:

transmitting information relating to a plurality of available individual seats on one or more airplanes to an application running on a general purpose computer on the wide area network for display to the end user, each of the one or more airplanes traveling a flight segment of a trip having one or more segments;

providing one or more pages that comprise an interactive seating map representing information relating to available individual seats on each of the one or more airplanes from which the end user can select one or more available individual seats, the interactive seating map providing additional information on the one or more available individual seats in response to a user interaction with the seating map, the interaction being triggered when placing a mouse over one of the available individual seats;

receiving from the end user a selection of one or more selected seats for each of the one or more airplanes; and

accepting over the wide area network from the end user payment information for the one or more selected seats.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

sending to the end user information that can be printed as a ticket by the end user.

3. A system for interactively selecting tickets to seats on an airplane by a plurality of end users over a wide area network, the system comprising:

a database storing a plurality of entries denoting a plurality of available individual seats on an airplane; and

a server, configured to;

query the database for information relating to the plurality of available individual seats on one or more airplanes, each of the one or more airplanes traveling a flight segment of a trip having one or more segments;

transmit information relating to a plurality of available individual seats on the one or more airplanes to an application running on a general purpose computer on the wide area network for display to an end user;

provide one or more pages that comprise an interactive seating map representing information relating to available individual seats on each of the one or more airplanes from which the end user can select one or more available individual seats, the interactive seating map providing additional information on the one or more available individual seats in response to a user interaction with the seating map, the interaction being triggered by placing a mouse over one of the available individual seats;

receive from the end user a selection of one or more selected seats for each segment of the journey; and

accept over the wide area network from the end user payment information for the one or more selected seats.

4. The system of claim 3 where the server is further configured to:

send to the end user information that can be printed as a ticket.