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future, and improved access times to about half a second. The new system also recorded additional information every time a booking was made, including statistical information on the number of inquiries, bookings and cancellations on a per-operator and overall basis. To take full advantage of the new system, the entire office was re-arranged to include 362 telephone operators to interact directly with the public, 40 to handle travel agents and large business accounts, and another 140 to connect to other
American ticket offices around the country. Calls averaged 45,000 a day, requiring a staff of 40 machine operators and supervisors.
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single hole representing a flight; when the flight reached 75% a large peg was inserted that the booking agents could see, sometimes using binoculars. Once the flight had been pegged, the agents reverted to the older centralized booking system. In an era where aircraft rarely flew with 75% of the seats filled, this system dramatically reduced the number of phone calls.
260:
In 1953 C.R. Smith was on a flight from Los
Angeles to New York when he struck up a conversation with another passenger and learned that he was also named Smith. The passenger was Blair Smith, an IBM sales executive. C.R. arranged for Smith to visit the Magnetronic Reservisor office and suggest ways
131:
displaying the status for that flight for all ten days at once. The booking agent could then tell the sales agent the flight status without walking to the cabinet, as well as immediately offer alternatives if it was sold out. The flight card was only updated when the customer actually bought a seat.
60:
became president of
American Airlines in 1934 and set an aggressive expansion policy. When American Airlines had 85 planes in its fleet he stated "Any employee who can't see a day when we will have a thousand planes had better look for a job somewhere else." Known as a hands-on manager, Smith pushed
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network to automatically print tickets with complete routing information. The tapes could then be forwarded for processing at remote sites, including the
Magnetronic Reservisor in New York, allowing remote offices to directly book and cancel flights while recording passenger information at the same
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The major advantage of this system over the older pegboard was that the signals could be operated remotely. This eliminated the need to have one very large room for bookings, and allowed the terminals to be installed remotely. The flight status could also easily be copied from machine to machine by
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In order to book a ticket on a flight, a sales agent would call into the right booking office and request information on a particular flight. The booking agent would then walk over to a filing cabinet and retrieve the flight card. They would then return to the phone to tell the sales agent if there
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Since the machine was now returning discrete information, instead of a simple on-off status, the terminals could no longer automatically display the overall status of a group of flights. Each flight had to be queried separately from the drum, and then light the lamp if it was filled. Amman spent a
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The
Reservisor was essentially an electromechanical version of the flight boards introduced for the "sell and report" system. The heart of the machine consisted of a large matrix with the rows representing the flights and the columns representing the next ten days. When a flight reached its limit,
64:
Following Smith's lead, Marion Sadler, manager of customer support, and Bill Hogan, in charge of finance, concluded that the company was spending too much effort on keeping on top of accounting, and not enough on the problem of booking times. They hired
Charles Amman to study the problem. He broke
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The trials included buttons, dials, rolls of paper tape, loops of 35 mm film and finally, the "destination plate". The plate consisted of a metal card with notches on the edge that engaged switches in the terminal, which energized lines back to the drum to retrieve information for all of the
81:
Problems occurred when the flights were close to full. In that case the booking agent would have to inform the sales agent that there were no seats, and the sales agent would then ask the customer if there were any other flights they might choose as an alternative. The booking agent would have to
85:
Amman attacked this problem first. In 1939 he implemented a new system called "sell and report" that reduced the reporting needs by allowing any office to book seats without calling the central office until 75% of the seats were sold. Each office had a board of future flights that consisted of a
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booking office in 1952. The system was built with the ability to store information for up to 1,000 flights 10 days into the future, and took about 1.2 seconds per query. In 1956 a new version was installed at
American's New York West Side Terminal with storage for 2,000 flights 31 days into the
244:
In spite of the successes with the
Reservisor and Reserwriter, the system as a whole was highly dependent on manual input. It was prone to errors as a result, and about 8 percent of all bookings contained errors. To add to the confusion, the full process of booking a flight, even a single-leg,
130:
Booking operators were equipped with terminals that looked like a smaller version of the control system, replacing the holes with lamps. They could query the flight status by selecting a flight and then energizing their board. Electricity flowed from their terminal through the selected flight,
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The
Reservisor was installed in American's Boston reservation office in February 1946. After a one-year trial, they found that the office was handling 200 more passengers a day, with 20 fewer operators. One downside was that the electrical relay contacts would get dirty and required constant
82:
return to the cabinets each time to retrieve the flight cards; since there were many booking agents who might want to retrieve the cards, the agents couldn't take more than one at a time. During busy schedule periods, this process could stretch out the booking process indefinitely.
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flights to that destination at once. A series of lights indicated which ones still had available seats. When a booking was made, a lever on the terminal subtracted one seat from the value stored on the drum, while another allowed it to be added back in the case of a cancellation.
256:
fleet to 112 on the new aircraft. Their speed was also much greater, allowing almost twice as many flights per aircraft per day. The result was that the aircraft could deliver passengers faster than their existing booking systems could sell tickets for them.
269:(SAGE) system for the United States Air Force, which had a large number of features in common with a booking system; remote communications with "offices", real-time updating, interactive user terminals, and storage of large amounts of information.
147:
Encouraged by the
Reservisor, but ultimately unhappy with the advantages it offered, Amman started examining a much more advanced system that handled not only the availability issues, but the actual seat inventory as well. At about this time,
73:
known as a flight card. The offices were normally located at one of the airports involved, but were increasingly centralized at major airports or located at a telephone company switching office to ease the adding or removing of phone lines.
89:
Although the "sell and report" system worked, it didn't solve the other problems that occurred when the flight had reached the 75% point. The problem of finding an alternate flight when the flight was filled also remained a major problem.
276:
system started, which many computer historians have suggested was one of the major milestones in the commercialization of computers. SABRE was not, however, the first computerized booking system; that honor goes to the little-known
98:
Amman suggested that an automated system for storing seat inventory be built, and in 1944 mocked up a system for a single flight and showed it to Smith. Smith was encouraged, and approved funding for building a real-world system.
65:
the process down into three steps; finding if a seat was available, updating the seating inventory when they purchased a seat or canceled a booking, and finally recording the passenger data (name, address, etc.) after the sale.
68:
At the time, bookings were handled by a system known as "request and reply". Booking data for any particular flight, say Buffalo to Boston, would be handled by a single office. Here, each scheduled flight was represented by an
139:
cleaning. And although it did help solve the availability issues, this made the rest of the booking task - collecting passenger information and recording the sale - that much more of a problem that needed to be solved.
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quotes across the country and presented them in "big board" form instead of a ticker. Their knowledge of remote signaling and electrical display made them a suitable partner for the Reservisor project.
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After installing the Magnetronic Reservisor, Teleregister produced a number of different versions for a variety of customers. A number of customers bought Magnetronic Reservisor systems, including
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The Magnetronic Reservisor largely solved the booking and availability problems, but this left the issue of recording passenger information after the sale was made. Working with
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considerable amount of time studying the user interaction with the machine, trying to find an easy way for the operator to query the data for a group of flights.
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were any seats available. If there was an available seat, they simply checked off a box, informed the sales agent, and returned the card to the cabinet.
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Low-level exploratory work continued for some time before IBM was able to offer a formal development contract on 18 September 1957. Development of the
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for storage. American and Teleregister decided to make a drum-based system that allowed direct manipulation of the number of seats available.
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installing a remote display at another booking office and then having operators copy the settings from one machine to the other.
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James McKenney et al., "Waves of Change: Business Evolution Through Information Technology", Harvard Business Press, 1995,
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75% at first but later increased, a relay was inserted into the board to short out the lines when they were energized.
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that American would be interested in a major collaboration. IBM was at that time starting work on the
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Amman approached a number of business machine vendors about building the system he referred to as the
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Greg Elmer, "Profiling Machines: Mapping the Personal Information Economy", MIT Press, 2004,
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his vice presidents to drive out inefficiencies that might block their potential expansion.
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that he found a partner willing to work on the system. Teleregister had started as part of
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time. By 1958, Reserwriters had been installed at most of American's larger offices.
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943:
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252:, their first jets. These aircraft increased seating from about 80 on the existing
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207:'s "Centronic", and a variety of warehousing and hotel room availability systems.
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required the input of 12 different people and took as long as 3 hours in total.
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that IBM might be able to improve the system. Blair alerted IBM's president,
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form, and read to the ticketing offices over American's existing
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developed a number of automated airline booking systems known as
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As if this were not bad enough, in 1952 American had ordered 30
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366:"Special Purpose Electronic Engineering... That Sets the Pace!"
223:, which allowed operators to type passenger information onto a
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199:. Modified versions, larger or smaller, were also sold as the
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30:The 1952 Magnetronic Reservisor on display at the
227:for storage. The card was then processed into a
995:Association of Professional Flight Attendants
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8:
378:"Oral history interview with R. Blair Smith"
152:had started work with the highly publicized
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193:Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad
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32:American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum
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267:Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
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368:, Teleregister Corporation, 1956
16:Automated airline booking system
1:
1016:Passenger Service Association
185:Braniff International Airways
1126:Electro-mechanical computers
1031:History of American Airlines
175:was installed in American's
380:, Charles Babbage Institute
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538:Pacific Southwest Airlines
493:American Overseas Airlines
18:
1085:
990:Allied Pilots Association
641:American Airlines Shuttle
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205:New York Central Railroad
49:system used to this day.
19:Not to be confused with
1121:One-of-a-kind computers
1077:Transpacific Route Case
1041:American Airlines Group
563:Trans Caribbean Airways
156:computer, which used a
118:, a division that sent
279:Trans-Canada Air Lines
173:Magnetronic Reservisor
143:Magnetronic Reservisor
34:
508:Lake Central Airlines
488:America West Airlines
478:All American Aviation
112:Stamford, Connecticut
29:
568:Trans World Airlines
108:Teleregister Company
523:MidAtlantic Airways
513:Marquette Airlines
503:Executive Airlines
483:Allegheny Airlines
263:Thomas Watson, Jr.
219:, Amman built the
197:New Haven Railroad
177:La Guardia Airport
37:Starting in 1946,
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1131:American Airlines
1116:Travel technology
1103:
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1061:Celebrated Living
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604:C.R. Smith Museum
548:Piedmont Airlines
447:American Airlines
356:McKenney, pg. 104
335:McKenney, pg. 102
323:McKenney, pg. 100
189:National Airlines
53:Before Reservisor
39:American Airlines
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974:George A. Spater
959:Thomas W. Horton
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558:Simmons Airlines
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934:Donald J. Carty
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543:Parks Air Lines
533:Ozark Air Lines
528:Mohawk Airlines
498:Empire Airlines
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983:Organizations
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721:December 2001
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1054:American Way
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944:O. Roy Chalk
929:Gerard Arpey
716:October 1943
466:acquisitions
388:Bibliography
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254:Douglas DC-7
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225:punched card
220:
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203:' "UNISEL",
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150:Howard Aiken
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120:stock market
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1006:Association
969:C. R. Smith
964:Doug Parker
909:Flight 5966
891:Flight 5456
886:Flight 5452
881:Flight 4184
876:Flight 3379
871:Flight 3378
853:Flight 6780
848:Flight 6001
843:Flight 1572
838:Flight 1502
833:Flight 1420
767:Flight 383
464:Mergers and
250:Boeing 707s
221:Reserwriter
211:Reserwriter
158:drum memory
58:C. R. Smith
1110:Categories
1067:Reservisor
949:E. L. Cord
902:Connection
828:Flight 965
823:Flight 924
818:Flight 910
813:Flight 723
808:Flight 711
803:Flight 625
798:Flight 587
793:Flight 514
788:Flight 476
783:Flight 444
763:Flight 331
758:Flight 320
753:Flight 293
748:Flight 191
743:Flight 157
738:Flight 102
707:Flight 63
693:Flight 009
620:AAdvantage
587:Facilities
578:US Airways
293:References
285:) system,
283:Air Canada
229:paper tape
104:Reservisor
94:Reservisor
71:index card
43:Reservisor
1014:Teamsters
733:Flight 96
728:Flight 77
711:July 1943
703:Flight 28
698:Flight 11
672:Flight 1
656:Incidents
599:AA Center
281:(today's
21:Reservoir
1095:Category
900:American
862:American
688:Flight 2
666:Airlines
664:American
625:AAirpass
613:Programs
594:AA Arena
553:Reno Air
518:MetroJet
456:Oneworld
287:ReserVec
233:teletype
1024:Related
922:People
634:Brands
458:member
408:
398:
1072:Sabre
1036:Fleet
864:Eagle
298:Notes
274:Sabre
240:SABRE
47:Sabre
776:2016
771:1965
681:1962
676:1941
406:ISBN
396:ISBN
195:and
1010:CWA
1004:IAM
1000:TWU
217:IBM
110:of
1112::
349:^
328:^
306:^
289:.
191:,
187:,
1012:/
1002:-
439:e
432:t
425:v
23:.
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