Airline ticket sales system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018114150-A1
Application number	US-201715850631-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 21, 2017
Priority date	Aug 7, 2015
Publication date	Apr 26, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

An airline ticket sales system having a stock recording unit retaining a stock of flights, and a destination candidate extraction unit including: receiving an input of at least one condition from a user via an information processing terminal, information about a destination airport being excluded from the condition; acquiring, from the stock recording unit, information about outbound candidate flights and inbound candidate flights satisfying the condition; extracting, as candidate airports, a predetermined number from airports common to arrival airports of the outbound candidate flights and departure airports of the inbound candidate flights; selecting, based on a predetermined criterion, one from round-trip candidate flights composed of combinations of the outbound candidate flights and the inbound candidate flights among the departure airports of the outbound candidate flights specified by the condition and the respective candidate airports; and regarding the selected one as a to-be-sold round-trip flight.

First claim

1 . An airline ticket sales system for selling an airline ticket in combination with an outbound flight and an inbound flight, the airline ticket sales system comprising:
a stock recording unit retaining a stock of flights; and a destination candidate extraction unit including:
receiving an input of at least one condition from a user via an information processing terminal, information about a destination airport being excluded from the condition;
acquiring, from the stock recording unit, information about outbound candidate flights and inbound candidate flights satisfying the condition;
extracting, as candidate airports, a predetermined number from airports common to arrival airports of the outbound candidate flights and departure airports of the inbound candidate flights;
selecting, based on a predetermined criterion, one from round-trip candidate flights composed of combinations of the outbound candidate flights and the inbound candidate flights among outbound departure airports specified by the condition and the respective candidate airports; and
regarding the selected one as a to-be-sold round-trip flight.

2 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 1 ,
wherein in extracting the predetermined number of the candidate airports, the destination candidate extraction unit assigns a weight to and weights each of the airports common to the arrival airports of the outbound candidate flights and the departure airports of the inbound candidate flights based on at least one parameter, the parameter including at least any one of an attribute for each of the airports, a month or a day of a week related to outbound and/or inbound departure date, and an attribute of the user.

3 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 1 ,
wherein in selecting the to-be-sold round-trip flight, the destination candidate extraction unit assigns a weight to and weights each of the round-trip candidate flights.

4 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 3 ,
wherein the weight is assigned based on either a stock quantity of the outbound flight or a stock quantity of the inbound flight related to each of the round-trip candidate flights to be sold, whichever is lower.

5 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 3 ,
wherein the weight is assigned based on multiplication of a per-airport weight and an in-airport per-round-trip weight, the per-airport weight being set based on a stock quantity for each of the candidate airports corresponding to the round-trip candidate flights, the in-airport per-round-trip weight being set based on a stock quantity for each of the round-trip candidate flights to be sold in the candidate airports.

6 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 5 ,
wherein the per-airport weight is assigned based on either a sum of stock quantities of the outbound flights or a sum of stock quantities of the inbound flights about all the round-trip candidate flights related to the candidate airports, whichever is lower.

7 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 5 ,
wherein the in-airport per-round-trip weight is assigned based on a value obtained by multiplying together a stock quantity of the outbound flight and a stock quantity of the inbound flight about each of the to-be-sold round-trip candidate flights related to the candidate airports.

8 . The airline ticket sales system according to claim 1 ,
wherein after performing a first response to the input of the condition from the user, the destination candidate extraction unit performs the first response again when receiving again an input of a same condition as the condition from the user within a predetermined time period.

Assignees

• Nomura Res Inst Ltd

Inventors

• Morioka Taro
• Nakamura Hiroyuki
• Arai Akira
• Sagimori Takashi
• Matsuo Hitoshi
• Shimada Takeo

Classifications

• G06Q10/025 Primary

  Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation · CPC title

• G06Q30/0601

  Electronic shopping [e-shopping] · CPC title

• G06Q30/0207

  Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates · CPC title

• G06Q50/14

  Travel agencies · CPC title

• G06Q50/30

  Physics · mapped topic