Flight Finder: IBE

Flight Finder – Product Description

Flight Finder is a product designed for traditional: ‘off-line’ travel agencies, which want to expand their distribution channels and sell airline tickets on-line through the Internet.


The process of creating a new Internet Booking Engine from the scratch, based on the programming interface of one of the Global Distribution Systems requires time, experienced programmers and high financial investment. Flight Finder is a ready, fully functional IBE that can be placed on the web site of a travel agency in just few minutes. Mikrosystem programmers will customize the graphical layer to make a perfect fit with your travel agency web page and meet your business requirements.

Flight Finder searches for the best available connection (checking all applicable fares and the actual seat availability) for given city pairs, and creates the booking for the selected itinerary. The booking is priced and the final fare, including the configurable transaction fee, is re-confirmed with the customer. The last step is the selection of the preferred form of payment (cash, money transfer, or credit card), and the delivery method. Electronic tickets issued in the GDS are automatically delivered by e-mail.

Each successfully created booking is sent to the specified system queue in the Travel Agency booking system for verification and ticketing. In addition, Flight Finder sends two e-mails: to the travel agency (notification about the new booking), and to the customer (confirmation of the booking, flight details, ticketing date, fare restrictions, form of payment, agency contact details)

Flight Finder – four different ways of implementation

1. A link on the travel agency web site – this is the easiest and the quickest way of placing the search engine on the web page. All it needs is placing the link to the service provided by Mikrosystem on the Travel Agency web page. By clicking on the link, the customers will automatically be transferred to the Flight Finder page customized to fit with the graphical design of the travel agency web site.

Examples of the implemented sites:

Travel Agency web site (on the left)

Customized Flight Finder IBE (on the right)

2. iFrame – A window in the Travel Agency web page shows the search engine located at Mikrosystem server. The colors and size of the frames are adjusted by Mikrosystem programmers to the Travel Agency needs. Integration is achieved by placing the <IFRAME></IFRAME> HTML code on travel agency web site together with the link to Mikrosystem IBE.

Examples of implementations:

3. Customized user interface to the Mikrosystem FF IBE – based on a sample HTML code provided by Mikrosystem. This method requires more programming effort on the customer side – compared with the previous implementation types. The benefit is the complete control over the user interface look and functionality. It is also possible to place your own search form on many sub sites of the customer web service, modify search criteria, list of origin and destination ports, etc.

Examples of implementations:

4. API (application programming interface) This technology allows the creation of a completely customized booking system. The benefit is a full control over each phase of the reservation process and customized administration procedures, the freedom to use any suitable programming language and technology. Communication with our system is based on XML. Mikrosystem provides sample code to serve as a basis for this type of implementation.

Examples of implementations:

Flight Finder – different business models

1. Stand-alone (B to C) – designed to be placed on a single web site.

2. Sub-agent version – Off-line (B to B) – designed for non-IATA agencies selling airline tickets in cooperation with an IATA travel agency acting as the fulfillment office.

The system supports individual logins and passwords for each sub-agent agency, and offers intuitive graphical desktop allowing to book flights with minimum training (designed for employees with no GDS experience).

3. Sub-agent version – On-line (B to B to C) – designed to be placed on the web sites of non-IATA sub-agents. The fulfillment IATA agency is acting as a consolidator and administers the system. This version offers a number of administrative tools and reports allowing supervision of the transactions processed on the sub-agent web sites.

All of the described solutions come with administrative panel and a number of administrative tools and reports allowing the supervision of the processed transactions. The Admin panel controls the way each of the booking web sites work (it allows definition of different levels of transaction fees, minimum/maximum advance ticketing dates, forms of payment, operating hours, etc.)

Flight Finder – The Admin panel

The Admin Panel allows full control over the booked reservations. It contains the information provided by the passenger during the booking process, the status of the booking (confirmed, unconfirmed, failed, deleted), record locators, fare and fee amounts, payment status, etc.

The basic version of the Admin Panel includes three types of reports:

  • Total transaction fee for the tickets sold,
  • Total Number of Power Shopper entries (essential for controlling look-to-book ratio),
  • Bookings made versus bookings ticketed

Other custom built reports are available on request:

Standard Implementation includes:

  • Regular Flights Module
  • iFrame form or API specification
  • Administrative panel
  • Sub-agents management module
  • Standard graphic layers (iFrame)
  • Hosting on Mikrosystem server (iFrame)
  • English, Polish, and Romanian interface language (iFrame)

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