Ground-based travel portal

• US 7,587,474 B2
• Filed: 07/19/2005
• Issued: 09/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: O'Donnell, Mary E
• Primary Examiner(s): Coulter; Kenneth R
• Application Number:
  US11/184,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20050256751A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,512 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-207, 709220-222, 709217-219, 709/228, 715744-747, 715751-759, 705/5, 705/6, 707/3
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• 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 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 Hotels or restaurants
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/14 Travel agencies
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A ground-based travel planning portal is provided that is in communication with a counterpart in-transit portal so that the content presented through each portal is consistent to a traveler. The ground-based travel planning portal includes information for both business and leisure travel planning, in addition to other more general information. The traveler is able to identify and store a user-defined profile that includes personal traveling preferences such as airlines, hotels, rental cars, and personal content layout preferences which determines what content of the portal is presented to the traveler. Accordingly, the traveler has discretion to change and modify the content layout throughout the portal. Further, the user-defined profiles are shared across the ground-based portal and a counterpart in-transit portal so that the traveler accesses a common interface regardless of their travel status.

Claims

1. A ground-based wide-area network system embodied in hardware comprising:

a plurality of user-defined profiles embodied in computer readable media;

at least one link to an in-transit network portal;

a module, embodied in computer readable media, interfacing with the in-transit network portal, for displaying a plurality of pages of information including;

a universal navigation page and a plurality of content pages accessible from a home page, said content pages including both administrative information and travel related information;

a search routine available from at least one of the content pages that selectively searches, identifies and presents travel planning information to the in-transit portal;

wherein the user-defined profiles are shared between the ground-based wide-area network and the in-transit network portal to provide a consistent interface to a traveler including the travel planning information;

a user configurable button palette having a plurality of buttons that allows the traveler to configure links to the travel planning information, the button palette being shared between the ground-based wide-area network and the in-transit network portal to provide a common interface to the traveler; and

wherein the button palette is moveable between the content pages by the user.

2. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 1, wherein the user-defined profiles further comprise:

personal preferences of the traveler; and

content layout preferences of the traveler, such that the traveler can customize the ground-based portal.

3. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 1, wherein the travel planning information comprises:

navigation pages providing administrative functions; and

content pages providing travel related and general information to the traveler.

4. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 3, wherein the navigation pages and the content pages are accessible through a home page.

5. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 4, wherein the home page and the content pages comprise a tabbed navigation scheme, and the tabbed navigation scheme comprises buttons that are present throughout all of the content pages.

6. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 1, wherein the traveler is able to book the travel reservations presented by the search routine.

7. The ground-based wide-area network system of claim 1, wherein the travel planning information further comprises a virtual office in which the traveler can access a corporate network to communicate electronic data.

8. A wide-area network system embodied in hardware comprising:

at least one link to an in-transit network portal;

a module, embodied in a computer readable media, interfacing with the in-transit network portal including;

a virtual office portion which provides selectively modifiable travel planning content and a plurality of selectively modifiable user defined profiles that include content preferences;

at least one navigation page, which includes at least one administrative function;

at least one content page, which include at least one item of travel planning information; and

the at least one navigation page and the at least one content page being accessible through a home page;

a search routine that selectively searches, identifies and presents travel reservation information;

a user configurable button palette having a plurality of buttons that allows the traveler to configure links to the travel planning information, the button palette being shared between the ground-based wide-area network and the in-transit network portal to provide a common interface to the traveler; and

wherein the button palette is moveable between said content pages by the user.

9. The wide-area network system of claim 8, wherein the home page and the at least one content page comprise a tabbed navigation scheme, and the tabbed navigation scheme comprises buttons that are present on the at least one content page.

10. The wide-area network system of claim 8, wherein:

the button palette enables the traveler to quickly link to the travel planning information, the button palette being shared between the wide-area network and the in-transit network portal to provide a common interface to the traveler.