Delta Air Lines has launched Farelogix’ new availability calculation engine that makes the airline the single source of availability for transactions.
Called the FLX Availability Calculator, the engine is hosted and managed by the airline and integrated into its own technology stack to provide the airline with complete control over its proprietary rules and availability calculation logic.
The airline, according to Farelogix CEO Jim Davidson, “is running the show.”
The new engine is processing all seamless availability requests – those that are seeking exact availability on specific flights -- from GDSs and airline partners.
It includes the same comprehensive rules engine, FLX Rules and Offer Designer, that is delivered with the FLX Merchandise engine from Farelogix (also used by Delta and other airlines worldwide).
Delta is also using Farelogix’ Cascading Availability module for all its code-share partners, such as Aeromexico, Air France and KLM.
The module enables Delta to obtain accurate availability for its partners. “People don’t like false positives,” Davidson said.
FLX Availability Calculator is designed for high transaction volumes and supports large date range and NDC affinity search.
An optional FLX Schedule Builder engine for off-host dynamic connection-building enables airlines to optimize schedules by channel and further improve end-to-end transaction time.
FLX Availability Calculator can transact more than 250,000 flight segments per second on a single commodity server.
Farelogix expects the engine to save a carrier of Delta’s size millions in legacy hardware and transactions costs.
“We can compete with anything that’s out there based on accuracy, speed and cost,” Davidson said.
“Enabling airlines to become the single source of truth for their offer creation and delivery is core to Farelogix. Our entire suite of offer engines has been designed for speed, scalability and the lowest possible cost of ownership.”
The new standard, he said, is that this kind of advanced technology should cost less, not more.
“It makes it possible for airlines to service massive search volumes accurately and cost effectively, which is essential in today’s world of dynamic offers, NDC, meta searches and the continuing rise of mobile engagement. Availability is mission-critical.”
Another five airlines are currently scheduled for production with FLX Availability Calculator by the middle of 2018.