The difference between say Amazon and an airline reservation system lies in the complexity of the product, and the scarcity of its supply.
Thanks for a very imformative reply. You obviously have a good knowledge of how databases, behave and are accessed. In a nutshell, as you described, an airline seat to a given destination at a certain time of the day is unique. It's not like a book, which can be supplemented, in the way that you describe.
Horses for courses as they say. It looks like Ryanair needs to polish up its queries to its database and make them user friendly and accessible?
Maybe I need to contact you for a cheap flight to anywhere during September? When one thinks of it, it's not such a demanding request is it?