On-Line Airline Timetables
Paxing All Over The World
Thanks S.o.S. for pointing out my obious mistake! I gained this image when posting in the Aviation History & Nostalgia forum, in reply to a question about a flight my grandfather took in the 1930s. WHBM and others were very helpful.
Son of Slot
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Squawk 6042. I am happy for some nostalgia in here. Mostly it's 'breaking news' but I think this thread of more than enough interest. The only rule that we do watch out for is not to have the same topic discussed in two (or more) forums at the same time. This particular topic has experienced some 'thread drift' and that is fine.
At BA in the mid-70s I shared an office for a while with a wizened old IT guy who was building a prototype ticket printer, in the days when the norm was for them to be written out longhand.
Paxing All Over The World
I certainly remember the time when the ATB ticket came out and we thought this a great step forward! By the way, what did ATB stand for?
Some friends of ours are on their own boat drifting (they call it sailing) around the Caribbean. We tried to find a Virgin flight to get us to one of the islands.
Virgin make you select a specific date.
Forget it. I do not have enough time left on this planet. Loss of business for Virgin.
Virgin make you select a specific date.
Forget it. I do not have enough time left on this planet. Loss of business for Virgin.
Paxing All Over The World
I'd guess that most / all carriers want specific dates as they price per flight. The same daily flight might have a different seat price (in each price class) for each day of the week.
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On the enquiry page where you state departure, destination and date of travel there is a box "flexible travel dates", tick that and you will be presented with a 7 day pricing schedule centred on your chosen date.
Paxing All Over The World
I have seen the 7-day options but they still want you to narrow it down. I find that - on the times when i have to travel on specific dates - it costs a lot and, when I can be flexible, the variation in price is very little. I must be doing something wrong with my life ...
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Matrix ITA let's you do some powerful searches. Google bought them to run the back-end of Google Flights searches
Matrix ITA let's you do some powerful searches. Google bought them to run the back-end of Google Flights searches
I really conclude that the current generation of sales and IT personnel cannot read a conventional timetable, and conclude that thus nobody else can either. And they can't bear the thought that anyone looks at the flights they offer without coming away having bought something.
Some years ago Google Flight Search used to be quite good. I think they must have taken it from SSIM data. Nowadays getting you to book through them, showing flights in fare order, and emphasising their favourite carrier to the exclusion of others seems to the fore.
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I understand what you are looking for, but to me it sounds like a niche product rather than something of value to the majority of air travel consumers.
Also, I'm sure 'sales and IT personnel' would counter that an aviation enthusiast / pilot doesn't understand complexities of software development or airline marketing
Also, I'm sure 'sales and IT personnel' would counter that an aviation enthusiast / pilot doesn't understand complexities of software development or airline marketing
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A bit late to the party but I started working as a junior for a travel agency specialising in business travel in the summer of 1980. Although the company had recently invested in Travicom - a 'multi-airline' computer reservation system (where one had to log in to the airline you wanted), ABCs were most definitely the standard/go-to when needing to plan an itinerary of any note. If I recall correct, there were 2 editions bi-monthly (blue as per above - I am not yet allowed to post URLs and red, simply divided alphabetically on departure city). They were the size of doorsteps and being a geography nerd (still am) I had no problem getting used to using them - the amount of information for most flights was fantastic. Obviously, as technology developed, the need to depend on the ABCs diminished, although I recall we always kept a couple of copies on subscription, probably until the late 1980s. Little travel-technology related footnote: the company I worked for was the first to use SABRE in the UK. That changed everything.
Last edited by roofterrace; 28th Dec 2022 at 09:33. Reason: ABCs, not OAGs... and some grammar corrections
OAG did a rather nice set of mini guides (eg Europe &Mid East) - I think they're still available - but pricey IIRC
https://www.newconcepts.ca/product.p...6&cat=0&page=1
https://www.newconcepts.ca/product.p...6&cat=0&page=1
With ABC you had two books with all the cities listed in alphabetical order. Under each departure city they then listed destination points; direct flights first then a separate list of connections. OAG published a book for domestic US and a separate book for "everywhere else" and did what I thought of as the opposite of ABC. They had the alphabetical list of cities but they were arrival cities with departure cities listed under each arrival city with directs first then connections.
The disadvantage with each, if you only subscribed to oen, was that to construct you own connections you were hopping about in the books. If you had both you could open ABC at the departure point, OAG at the arrival point and then run through the cities until you found a common point.
IN both cases I believe the connections were sponsored by airlines rather than simply constructed by the publisher.
Both publishers also listed minimum connection times for when you were constructing your own connections.
There were some fares but there were separate books for anything more than a simple round trip published by different organisations. I can picture them in my mind but I can't remember the publishers. They didn't always agree! (Mind you, neither do the computer systems today).
As for ticketing I went from hand writing to the early Travicom system where airlines still provided you with their own tickets so you set the system going, inserted the correct airline ticket into the printer and it (usually) did it's thing. That system had issues with bar codes that the printer didn't always read. Then BA had Travicom install printers where the tickets were on a continuous feed which led to a system where the airline name was left blank and the system printed the airline name and code but you still paid the airlines sperarately then to BSP which is a centralised clearing house - all the money goes to BSP who then dole it out to the carrier named on the ticket (so interline billing still happened). Next we got ATBs, still BSP based and finally e-ticketing. With hand written tickets you occasionally got an article in trade press that some agent had written a hugely complex ticket and there would be a picture of several people very carefully displaying a long daisy chain of tickets. As time went on the ability to squeeze lots of information by writing very small on a paper ticket went away so that we now have a limit of 16 coupons on an e-ticket (or did have when I retired).
The disadvantage with each, if you only subscribed to oen, was that to construct you own connections you were hopping about in the books. If you had both you could open ABC at the departure point, OAG at the arrival point and then run through the cities until you found a common point.
IN both cases I believe the connections were sponsored by airlines rather than simply constructed by the publisher.
Both publishers also listed minimum connection times for when you were constructing your own connections.
There were some fares but there were separate books for anything more than a simple round trip published by different organisations. I can picture them in my mind but I can't remember the publishers. They didn't always agree! (Mind you, neither do the computer systems today).
As for ticketing I went from hand writing to the early Travicom system where airlines still provided you with their own tickets so you set the system going, inserted the correct airline ticket into the printer and it (usually) did it's thing. That system had issues with bar codes that the printer didn't always read. Then BA had Travicom install printers where the tickets were on a continuous feed which led to a system where the airline name was left blank and the system printed the airline name and code but you still paid the airlines sperarately then to BSP which is a centralised clearing house - all the money goes to BSP who then dole it out to the carrier named on the ticket (so interline billing still happened). Next we got ATBs, still BSP based and finally e-ticketing. With hand written tickets you occasionally got an article in trade press that some agent had written a hugely complex ticket and there would be a picture of several people very carefully displaying a long daisy chain of tickets. As time went on the ability to squeeze lots of information by writing very small on a paper ticket went away so that we now have a limit of 16 coupons on an e-ticket (or did have when I retired).
Son of Slot
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Hello roofterrace and welcome to the Cabin. The restriction on newbies for posting links is to prevent Spam from those we do not yet know. If you have an interesting link, send me a PM (Personal Message) and I can post it. It is good to have another who worked in 'the old days' and can put things into the correct timeline.
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Hello roofterrace and welcome to the Cabin. The restriction on newbies for posting links is to prevent Spam from those we do not yet know. If you have an interesting link, send me a PM (Personal Message) and I can post it. It is good to have another who worked in 'the old days' and can put things into the correct timeline.