METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PREDICTING AIRLINE SEAT AVAILABILITY

Systems predict the availability of travel resources and select an appropriate data source for obtaining travel resource inventory availability information by analyzing historical travel resource availability data. Such systems receive customer travel requests and determine candidate itineraries. The candidate itineraries are used to determine the probability that the candidate itineraries will remain available for certain periods of time based on historical availability information and fare rules. Such systems increase the reliability of booking travel itineraries by determining when it is necessary to obtain updated availability information. The systems make this determination by looking up candidate itineraries in a situation table calculated from historical availability information.