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This. (Disclosure: I'm cofounder/CTO of Volantio). Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's. It may be

by Fenn 8y ago

This. (Disclosure: I'm cofounder/CTO of Volantio). Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's. It may be worth mentioning that airlines are perhaps less-evil than is apparent from the outside. Most of their baffling behaviour is (IMHO) largely due to lack of capabilities rather than malevolence. Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem in a marketplace with extreme illiquidity (eg: traditionally, seats can't be resold effectively once purchased). The complexity is, frankly, staggering - the seminal paper on the topic is probably this: http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/ITA-software-travel-complexity.html http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-com... We are taking the (very small) initial steps in alleviating some of the issues by introducing increased liquidity into the market, but the ultimate goal is helping shift the industry into a more dynamic place (perhaps as described by the parent comment).

tyingq 8y ago
"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Personally, I find this common observation off base. Most airlines have pushed the legacy TPF layer into a sort of nosql data store. Both Sabre and Amadeus have been able to pull the business logic out of TPF. Any sort of lagging technical progress seems more related to either thin margins, or the complexity you point out. There's certainly room for innovation and improvement. I just hate the framing of the problem being tied to "old systems". It is mostly not true. Varies per airline, and res system, of course.
- Fenn 8y ago
  Sorry, I possibly stated that poorly - what I meant was: The current state of duopolistic airlines technology suppliers means that there may not be sufficient motiviation to evolve the capabilities of the old systems. Case in point: Regardless of whether Sabre/Amadeus have replaced their legacy layer with some sort of nosql, I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    "I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML" True, but TPF is scalable enough that it doesn't matter. The API is responsive, flexible, and handles the traffic. The ugliness isn't limiting new functionality, etc. We spend very little time talking about the cruft at the bottom. The business complexity is more important. Things like fare classes, discount codes, availability, fare basis codes, reaccommodation, and so forth. If it were all written in rust or Go + microservices it wouldn't be any more straightforward. Your product seems to confirm that. You aren't reducing that screen scraping any. But you're adding value.
    - Fenn 8y ago
      Well said :)
  - mbesto 8y ago
    > The current state of duopolistic airlines technology suppliers means that there may not be sufficient motiviation to evolve the capabilities of the old systems. So then what is the motivation to change this now? This seems like simple economics to me.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Is the legacy only technical? I was speaking of something far broader than just the database they're using at the heart of something. Our theories of place and travel are slowly changing due to new technical capability. Some of the lag is due to old theories embedded in old technology. But I think a lot of it is embedded in habit, custom, protocol, and business model. And in plain old not knowing. I expect we'll thrash around for decades before a new consensus emerges.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    You're correct. There is legacy thinking at airlines and travel companies. It is more of a barrier than any tech debt. I spend more time fighting "this is how we've always done it" than I spend fighting legacy systems.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"Most airlines have pushed the legacy TPF layer into a sort of nosql data store." Sorry what is TPF here?
  - tyingq 8y ago
    The legacy IBM mainframe OS that powers the base layer for most airlines, and also things like credit card transactions. It's completely different from the most prevalent mainframe OS (zOs/MVS). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facil... Think of it like nosql. High transaction rates, and high contention. Great when used for it's strengths, terrible otherwise. Close to bare metal, and hard to match for transactions/second with decades newer tech. The record sizes are closely matched to hardware I/O offload cache sizes. It's an I/O beast. Imagine an OS built specifically to ignore things like private memory space in favor of specific dedicated drivers with intimate knowledge of specific disk and cache controllers to read and write as fast as possible, skipping the CPU whenever possible. And hardware -aware record locking semantics.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      Oh interesting. Thanks for the link. I guess I always just assumed it was some old IBM 360 series. Cheers.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Which legacy exactly are they "burdened" with? The airlines in US were deregulated in 1980s. The airlines look nothing like they did in the 1950s. The regulatory regime is gone, there's "power by the hour", fuel futures etc. >"Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem ..." Yes and the airlines have pursued a policy of rapid consolidation which means forcing more people through regional hubs which are in no way optimal for their itineraries. >"We are taking the (very small) initial steps in alleviating some of the issues by introducing increased liquidity into the market ..." That is a bunch of double speak. Fixing the problem of overbooking is done by airlines practicing some basic discipline - "stop selling what you don't have." If you are selling seats on an A320 with 180 seats then don't sell 200 seats. In what other industry is selling something you don't to sell done as a matter of course? The problem of overbooking is fixed by not actually overbooking. You are simply enabling airlines to continue this unethical practice of overbooking in a manner that's more profitable to them. I fail to see the innovation.
- nanis 8y ago
  These days, it's not the legacy. It is mostly regulation pushed by Chuck Schumer[1]. Predictably, the policy has made it much more profitable to outright cancel flights at the first sign of trouble. Add to that the consolidation that occurred since then, we are left with: > Four carriers with over 80% of domestic capacity: > - Three large, hub-oriented, global legacy carriers (American, United, Delta) > - One large, point-to-point oriented ‘low cost’ carrier (Southwest) > Six much smaller carriers, each with less than 5% of the market > - Three smaller, primarily hub-oriented carriers (Alaska, jetBlue, Hawaiian) > - Three much smaller point-to-point travel merchandisers, heavily reliant on ancillary fees, so-called ‘ultra low cost carriers’ or ‘ULCCs’ (Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant) The main legacy are the huge health care and retirement obligations. Baumol (1982) discussed the airline industry as an example of a contestable market[3]. Free entry & exit no longer applies. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/22passengers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/22passengers.htm... [2]: https://www.eyefortravel.com/revenue-and-data-management/us-airline-consolidation-what-happens-next https://www.eyefortravel.com/revenue-and-data-management/us-... [3]: https://econpapers.repec.org/article/aeaaecrev/v_3a72_3ay_3a1982_3ai_3a1_3ap_3a1-15.htm https://econpapers.repec.org/article/aeaaecrev/v_3a72_3ay_3a...
bogomipz 8y ago
>"It may be worth mentioning that airlines are perhaps less-evil than is apparent from the outside. Most of their baffling behaviour is (IMHO) largely due to lack of capabilities rather than malevolence." Just to recap the "Dr Dao United Airlines" incident mentioned in the article - United airlines had a passenger forcibly removed from a flight for not agreeing to give up his seat for off-duty United employees.[1] The reason the doctor wasn't interested in giving up his seat was because he had patients to see. I think that meets most people's criteria of "malevolence." https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2018/04/david-dao-affair https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2018/04/david-dao-a...
chx 8y ago
> traditionally, seats can't be resold effectively once purchased That's not tradition, that's self imposed to make yield management work. If you could just buy a ticket at its cheapest and sell whenever you want then yield management would collapse.

by Fenn 8y ago

tyingq 8y ago

"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Personally, I find this common observation off base. Most airlines have pushed the legacy TPF layer into a sort of nosql data store. Both Sabre and Amadeus have been able to pull the business logic out of TPF. Any sort of lagging technical progress seems more related to either thin margins, or the complexity you point out. There's certainly room for innovation and improvement. I just hate the framing of the problem being tied to "old systems". It is mostly not true. Varies per airline, and res system, of course.

Fenn 8y ago
Sorry, I possibly stated that poorly - what I meant was: The current state of duopolistic airlines technology suppliers means that there may not be sufficient motiviation to evolve the capabilities of the old systems. Case in point: Regardless of whether Sabre/Amadeus have replaced their legacy layer with some sort of nosql, I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML.
- tyingq 8y ago
  "I can absolutely guarantee you that many of their primary APIs are literally screen-scraping terminal sessions and returning the screen as XML" True, but TPF is scalable enough that it doesn't matter. The API is responsive, flexible, and handles the traffic. The ugliness isn't limiting new functionality, etc. We spend very little time talking about the cruft at the bottom. The business complexity is more important. Things like fare classes, discount codes, availability, fare basis codes, reaccommodation, and so forth. If it were all written in rust or Go + microservices it wouldn't be any more straightforward. Your product seems to confirm that. You aren't reducing that screen scraping any. But you're adding value.
  - Fenn 8y ago
    Well said :)
- mbesto 8y ago
  > The current state of duopolistic airlines technology suppliers means that there may not be sufficient motiviation to evolve the capabilities of the old systems. So then what is the motivation to change this now? This seems like simple economics to me.
wpietri 8y ago
Is the legacy only technical? I was speaking of something far broader than just the database they're using at the heart of something. Our theories of place and travel are slowly changing due to new technical capability. Some of the lag is due to old theories embedded in old technology. But I think a lot of it is embedded in habit, custom, protocol, and business model. And in plain old not knowing. I expect we'll thrash around for decades before a new consensus emerges.
- tyingq 8y ago
  You're correct. There is legacy thinking at airlines and travel companies. It is more of a barrier than any tech debt. I spend more time fighting "this is how we've always done it" than I spend fighting legacy systems.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"Most airlines have pushed the legacy TPF layer into a sort of nosql data store." Sorry what is TPF here?
- tyingq 8y ago
  The legacy IBM mainframe OS that powers the base layer for most airlines, and also things like credit card transactions. It's completely different from the most prevalent mainframe OS (zOs/MVS). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facil... Think of it like nosql. High transaction rates, and high contention. Great when used for it's strengths, terrible otherwise. Close to bare metal, and hard to match for transactions/second with decades newer tech. The record sizes are closely matched to hardware I/O offload cache sizes. It's an I/O beast. Imagine an OS built specifically to ignore things like private memory space in favor of specific dedicated drivers with intimate knowledge of specific disk and cache controllers to read and write as fast as possible, skipping the CPU whenever possible. And hardware -aware record locking semantics.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    Oh interesting. Thanks for the link. I guess I always just assumed it was some old IBM 360 series. Cheers.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"Airlines are very much currently burdened with a legacy that was cemented in sometime in the 50's." Which legacy exactly are they "burdened" with? The airlines in US were deregulated in 1980s. The airlines look nothing like they did in the 1950s. The regulatory regime is gone, there's "power by the hour", fuel futures etc. >"Ultimately, they're given a large multi-dimensional optimisation problem ..." Yes and the airlines have pursued a policy of rapid consolidation which means forcing more people through regional hubs which are in no way optimal for their itineraries. >"We are taking the (very small) initial steps in alleviating some of the issues by introducing increased liquidity into the market ..." That is a bunch of double speak. Fixing the problem of overbooking is done by airlines practicing some basic discipline - "stop selling what you don't have." If you are selling seats on an A320 with 180 seats then don't sell 200 seats. In what other industry is selling something you don't to sell done as a matter of course? The problem of overbooking is fixed by not actually overbooking. You are simply enabling airlines to continue this unethical practice of overbooking in a manner that's more profitable to them. I fail to see the innovation.

nanis 8y ago
These days, it's not the legacy. It is mostly regulation pushed by Chuck Schumer[1]. Predictably, the policy has made it much more profitable to outright cancel flights at the first sign of trouble. Add to that the consolidation that occurred since then, we are left with: > Four carriers with over 80% of domestic capacity: > - Three large, hub-oriented, global legacy carriers (American, United, Delta) > - One large, point-to-point oriented ‘low cost’ carrier (Southwest) > Six much smaller carriers, each with less than 5% of the market > - Three smaller, primarily hub-oriented carriers (Alaska, jetBlue, Hawaiian) > - Three much smaller point-to-point travel merchandisers, heavily reliant on ancillary fees, so-called ‘ultra low cost carriers’ or ‘ULCCs’ (Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant) The main legacy are the huge health care and retirement obligations. Baumol (1982) discussed the airline industry as an example of a contestable market[3]. Free entry & exit no longer applies. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/22passengers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/business/22passengers.htm... [2]: https://www.eyefortravel.com/revenue-and-data-management/us-airline-consolidation-what-happens-next https://www.eyefortravel.com/revenue-and-data-management/us-... [3]: https://econpapers.repec.org/article/aeaaecrev/v_3a72_3ay_3a1982_3ai_3a1_3ap_3a1-15.htm https://econpapers.repec.org/article/aeaaecrev/v_3a72_3ay_3a...

bogomipz 8y ago

>"It may be worth mentioning that airlines are perhaps less-evil than is apparent from the outside. Most of their baffling behaviour is (IMHO) largely due to lack of capabilities rather than malevolence." Just to recap the "Dr Dao United Airlines" incident mentioned in the article - United airlines had a passenger forcibly removed from a flight for not agreeing to give up his seat for off-duty United employees.[1] The reason the doctor wasn't interested in giving up his seat was because he had patients to see. I think that meets most people's criteria of "malevolence." https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2018/04/david-dao-affair https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2018/04/david-dao-a...

chx 8y ago

> traditionally, seats can't be resold effectively once purchased That's not tradition, that's self imposed to make yield management work. If you could just buy a ticket at its cheapest and sell whenever you want then yield management would collapse.