Introduction

The original functionality and user interface, of the Flight seat regulation, has undergone some amendments to the user dialog and therefore this revision has been created.

Definitions

Flight seat regulation

Flight seat regulation means that available seats can be limited for specific travel durations, in order to obtain the highest possible occupancy on flights.
Without regulation there exists the possibility that available seats on outbound flights cannot be sold because there may not exist available seats, on the corresponding inbound flights.
Since, the majority of bookings will be made for durations up to, and including 15 days, tour operators wish to make sure that the maximum occupancy is reached for these durations.

Flight seat regulation settings

With in the DaVinci settings the Project manager would define the durations that shall be calculated for the flight seat regulation interface, and activate this functionality

To restrict/set the number and length of duration with in the interface results: i.e. 8, 11, 12, 15, 22, and 29 days the user has to enter the nights for the duration calculation.

Calculation of Departures

Thursday and Saturday departures

Duration calculations for return flights:

Wednesday and Saturday departures

Duration calculations for return flights:

Maintenance of flight seat regulation

Flight seat regulation is complex for the end user and there needs to be a user-friendly interface that gives an overview of the available seats (outbound and inbound) for a specific city pairs. Within this interface user will be able to limit the available seats on inbound flights for a specific duration.

Booking Code Settings

For regulating of destination, or booking codes, the user will have to assign to the booking codes an origin and destination. The definitions of these values are taken from the statistic codes – Destination.
For an outbound flight i.e. PRG RHO/QSA the origin should be PRG and destination RHO.
The inbound flight RHO PRG/QSA would therefore have the origin RHO and destination PRG.
This functions as the initial pairing for flights, as there can exist more than one flight (Booking code), or more seat classes with similar or unique allotments.

Flight rotations do not have to be set up for flight regulation functionality.
However, if it would be preferred to link corresponding flights (Booking codes) flag the corresponding flights, and the Flight Destination will change to Corresponding flights. Where as, in the drop down box you will then have the choices of booking codes rather than Statistical codes. Important: the booking code linked must also be linked to this booking code for this to function in the regulation dialog! Additionally, these results will not be listed with those of the Destination in the flight regulation, and vice versa.

Dialog Flight Seat Regulation

Upon opening the Dialog the user will have to enter the departure (Origin) and Arrival (Destination) locations for the destination that is desired to be regulated.
Important: The catalog must be selected, and only regulate from Outbound to destination, and not from the Destination to original Outbound location. Do not leave the fields date from and to blank, as the calculation will take longer. Pick as close to the specific departure dates (from outbound location) that you wish to regulate as possible.

For the departure on 27/06/2008, duration length 14, there are 170 seats defined. From this amount 12 have been occupied in this combination of out and inbound allotments and there exists a limitation of 38 seats. This means that there cannot be more than 38 seats sold for the 14 night duration.







A user can also see other departures that share the same return date (highlighted in Blue, when a field is selected). Additionally, the return date is shown in the lower right hand corner of the dialog, for the selected return.

• Actual status Radio button

This will display the actual bookable status for you allotments. It is not recommended to limit flights from this view; only from the total view is recommended.

Of the 38 limited seats for this duration and combination, 12 have been reserved. In the actual status the amount is converted for user reference.

Package finder

The limitation of seats is visible in the package finder transport availability fields.
Mandatory to display the amount limited are the following fields:
Catalog, Destination, Transportation, departure date, and (important) Nights
In the below example, duration is not filled. Therefore, Flight seat regulation is not checked. Reason for this is that system requires what the expected duration to calculate is. Below, there is only one departure date (however there could have been more) and the return date for a 14 night departure can be the same as a 7 or 21 night duration. Thus, to see the limitation, a user must enter the requested nights in the field "Nights".










Once the duration is used, then Flight seat regulation is able to display the actual status of the limited flight pairs.




















For the 7 night duration, there had not been any limitation set. Thus all of the remaining allotments are still valid for sale in this departure and duration




















There also exists the possibility to close duration, by setting the limitation amount to 0. If seats have already been sold, then the limitation should equal the amount of occupied.




Once a limitation has been reached, the booking, or rebooking into, flight pair that no longer possesses available seats, based upon limitation is no longer possible.

The error message "K521 Service sold out – Check alternatives" is displayed, and the outbound flight is highlighted.
Bookings that already possess allotments from the limited flight pairs are possible to be rebooked after the limitation. However, additional seats cannot be requested as the limitation has been reached.

What is not checked by Flight Seat Regulation?

If there exists more than one flight to and/or from a destination then the booking of non-matching service pairs will not be checked, by the flight seat regulation functionality.